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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY 



THE ETHICS OF SCHOOL RELATIONS 



By JOHN KENNEDY 



IXSTRCCTOR I.V TEACHERS' IXSTITCTE3 



S0^^^>^ 





NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FEANKLIN SQUARE. 



1878 



3^ 



Eutered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S78, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE 



The doctrine of this treatise was embodied 
ill a paper entitled '' The Philosophy of 
School Discipline," read before the J^ew 
York State Teachers' Association at Platts- 
bnrgh, N". Y., July 25th, 1877. The paper 
Tras favorably received by the Association, 
and was afterwards pnblished in pamphlet 
form in order to subject it to the careful 
examination and criticism of the education- 
al public. 

Many opinions of the ^' Philosophy " have 
been received from leading educational au- 
thorities. Those opinions, while pronounc- 
ing the doctrine sound and its formulas use- 



ivr PREFACE. 



ful, have been accompanied by urgent re- 
quests for a more elaborate discussion of the 
principles laid down; and it is in compli- 
ance with these requests that the present 
work is undertaken. 

The author fully believes that there ex- 
ist in the nature of things materials for a 
Science of School Discipline. If this work 
should fail of scientific accuracy and com- 
pleteness, he trusts that it may at least have 
the effect of stimulating inquiry, and hasten- 
ing the time when we shall have an authen- 
tic science of this important subject. He 
is convinced, from extended observation in 
many of the foremost states in the Union, 
that the educational energy of this nation is 
suffering from a vicious empiricism. We see 
much guess-work abroad in the land, and 
many haphazard ventures, without uniform- 
ity of thought, and consequently without real 
progress. 



PREFACE. 



Until the profession of teaching rests upon 
scientific formulas it will ever be in its in- 
fancy. Bj empirical methods each teacher 
spends his life in more or less blundering 
experiments, and dies when he is beginning 
to understand his vocation. His successor 
repeats the same round of experience. 

Science would save this great waste of ex- 
periment, and conserve the fruits of experi- 
ence from slipping into the grave. Experi- 
ment could then be utilized in doing real 
pioneer work, and not be wasted on j^rob- 
lems that had been solved ages before. With 
a science of school discipline promulgated, 
teachers would not be found, as now, inquir- 
ing of each other, ''What would you do in 
this case V but rather, " What is the scien- 
tific solution ?" Science gives an authority 
representing not merely individual experi- 
ence, however good, but rather tlie collective 
experience of ages. Its dicta ought certainly 
to be entitled to respect. 



VI PREFACE. 



Having access to a science of his profes- 
sion, the young disciple is enabled to get his 
eyes open in advance of blundering steps ; he 
has a ready authority in case of doubt or un- 
certainty ; and he has a vantage-ground for 
really original achievements. A scientific ba- 
sis welds a profession together and increases 
its momentum. But the science of school 
discipline extends beyond the profession, and 
would tend to shape the thoughts and lives 
of families and communities. 

The work, as now elaborated, has several 
ends in view, which may account for the 
rather composite style in which it is writ- 
ten. It aims to reach the thinker, and for 
his pur230se would observe a closely philo- 
sophical method. It aims to reach the 
parents and the community ; and, in con- 
sequence, it has at times a fulness of ex- 
emplification which would be unnecessary in 
a strictly philosophical or professional work. 



PREFACE. Vll 



It aims to be an instrumentality in tlie work 
of practical reform; and for that reason it 
has in places an intensity of language that 
would otherwise be without meaning. Prac- 
tical refai-ras are not accomplished without 
hard blows against the evils to be removed. 
The inertia of custom is overcome only by 
vigorous shaking. It has the general pro- 
fessional and literary aim of calling attention 
to a great field of research, comparatively 
untouched in this country — viz., the field of 
educational science. 

Our gigantic empiricism may have been 
all needed in order to furnish the data for 
generalization. But if so, we have already 
accumulated such a surfeit of facts as 
ought to delight the soul of the philoso- 
pher. It would seem that the time has ar- 
I'ived for a new departure. If it were 
necessary in the beginning to feel our way 
and acquire educational opinions, we should 



Vni PREFACE. 



hereafter see our way and possess educa- 
tional knowledge. He who will co-ordi- 
nate the truths discovered bj our empiri- 
cism, and fasten them in a well-defined 
terminology, will do a great public good. 

Hoping that the aims of the book will 
invite a merciful forbearance of its faults, 
it is respectfully submitted to the public. 

John Kennedy. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Paok 

Preface iii 

Introduction 11 

School Discipline 14 

Conditions of Order for the District 17 

Conditions of Order for the Parents 25 

Conditions of Order for the Children 44 

Conditions of Order for the Teacher 49 

Causes of Disorder 72 

Rights of the District 80 

Rights op. the Parents 82 

Rights of the Children 84 

Rights op Teachers 87 

Special Phases op Discipline 109 

Tabltlar Analysis 127 

Practical School Ethics 130 

District Problems 134, 

Family Problems 152 

Youth's Problems 179 

Teachers' Problems 182 

Index 201 



THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



introduction: 



Exact knowledge is acquired originally by 
induction — that is, by investigating the prop- 
erties of particular facts, noting their resem- 
blances and differences and the order of their 
occurrence. 

Resemblance and difference give rise to 
a classification of facts, and to the mental 
process of generalization ; order of occur- 
rence gives ]-ise to the conception of causa- 
tion. 

When we have effected a classification of 
a particular family of facts, and detected the 
order of causation, we have a subject. A 
subject in this sense is the summing-up of 



12 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

our discoveries and conclusions within a 
specified limit of research. 

The knowledge embraced in the subject 
may be im]3arted in two ways: 1st. Objec- 
tively — that is, by causing the learner to ob- 
serve particular facts, and to make his own 
deductions successively to the ultimate con- 
clusions of the subject. 2d. Subjectively — 
that is, by asserting the conclusions and il- 
lustrating their soundness by application to 
particular cases. 

Objectiv^e instruction is best suited to 
young minds, which generalize slowly and 
witli difficulty. When, however, the mind is 
measurably practised in generalization, the 
subjective method may be ]3ursued with profit. 

Subjective leai'ning consists in ap23rehend- 
ing the meaning of propositions, and mak- 
ing the a]3plication to particular cases. 

Subjective instruction" is effective only 
when it results in edification. Edification is 
the fulness and strength resulting from the 
complete possession of the thought. Start- 



INTRODUCTION. 13 



ing with the proposition, the mind sweeps 
through the field of particulars, and obtains 
complete possession of the thought only 
when it finds its application and verification 
in experience. With edification begins men- 
tal growth. Teaching should be to edifica- 
tion ; reading, or attention, should be to edi- 
fication. 

"We shall employ the subjective method in 
this work, and shall aim to give that clear- 
ness of statement which will be favorable 
to understanding and edification. 

The widest generalization in a subject is 
its definition. This, when correct, embraces 
all that enters into the subject, and finds 
its exemplification in a subsequent logical 
analysis. We can, therefore, expect tlie defi- 
nition to be but partly understood at the out- 
set, as all the subsecpient treatment tends to 
explain it. Through a series of minor proj)- 
ositions, involving less mental effort, we end 
with grasping the full significance of the 
definition. 



14: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. 

Definition. — Discipline, in the sense of 
government, is that power of control which 
produces and sustains order. 

Definition. — Order is fitness of condition 
in things. 

Throughout creation we see evidences of 
purpose. Every created thing has a definite 
end to fulfil in the economy of the universe, 
and relations to sustain to all other things. 
The extent of these relations is known only 
to the Infinite Mind; but copious glimpses 
of them are allowed to mortal discernment. 
It is the part of wisdom to search out the 
purposes, of which things are but the expres- 
sions. Without the purpose we but half 
know the thing. 

Change, activity, is the universal law of 
things. Where these infinite activities occur 



SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. 15 

ill accordance with creative purposes, there is 
no conflict, no disorder, but rather the di- 
vinest harmony. In inanimate nature, also, 
among non-rational creatures, this harmony 
appears. All things within these classes fulfil 
their appointed purposes with the most un- 
questioning obedience. 

It remains for the volition of man to dis- 
turb the harmony of creation. Hence we 
can understand the poet's tendency to retire 
from things which appear out of joint, and 
find his inspiration in the harmonies of obe- 
dient nature. 

Poetic genius is but a soul attuned to the 
harmonies of divine pur]30se, and to whom 
Nature's voices are intelligible. It turns 
from man only when he is at war with 
order; but it returns to him again when he 
is worthy of notice, and finds its grandest 
pgean in a grand man. 

Man was intended to be the crowning 
glory of creation, instead of its single blot. 

If the volition of man is the only source 



16 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

of disorder, when, then, is he in order ? 
When he is disposed "to will and to do of 
the good pleasure" of Him who gave liim 
his existence and his possibilities. Then is 
he in fitness of condition — then is he in 
order. 

Order as applied to a school means fitness 
of condition in all the parties comprehended 
in the idea of a school. The parties in this 
idea are as follows: 1st, the district as a 
body politic ; 2d, the parents or guardians ; 
3d, the children ; 4th, the teacher. 

The school is in order when, and only 
when, all these parties are in order. These 
parties are in order when they are in the 
condition most favorable for the upbuilding 
and advancement of the school. 

We may examine this point under more 
sj^ecific conditions. 



CONDITIONS OF OKDER FOR THE DISTRICT. IT 



COXDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE DISTRICT. 

The district is in order — 1st, when it is 
able to pay the necessary expenses of the 
school ; 2d, when it is willing to contribute 
freely to the wants of the school ; 3d, when 
it possesses a decorous and law-abiding pub- 
lic sentiment. 

1st. In the case of a private school, its 
district is unlimited in area and wealth. Its 
order, then, will depend principally upon the 
last two conditions, together with those of 
the remaining factors. 

It is different, however, in the case of the 
public schools. In this case the territory is 
parcelled out into definite areas for purposes 
of taxation. There is no disadvantage in 
this, provided the area has sufficient wealth 
to sustain an efficient school. 

Some states have wisely restricted the di- 
B 



18 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

mensions to which the areas of taxation may 
be reduced. The to^^n or township is au- 
thorized to tax itself for the support of a 
sufficient number of schools to accommo- 
date the wants of its people. 

Under this basis of taxation, the concen- 
tration or extension of schools will be regu- 
lated by the financial ability of tlie town- 
ship. 

It is perhajDS true that every township in 
the nation has the ability to support one or 
more good schools. There is, therefore, un- 
der this organization, no financial necessity 
for a bad school. If the township) chooses 
to multiply its schools in order to diminish 
the travelling of isolated inhabitants, it per- 
forms an act of folly, assumes burdens that 
it is not able to bear, and thus prejudices 
the first condition of order. 

But this condition of order is ruined in 
other states by a ^^ernicious system of un- 
limited subdivision of territory. The ability 
to subdivide is abused bv the desire to save 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE DISTRICT. 19 

travelling to and from the school-house ; and 
so the children's legs are saved at the ex- 
pense of their brains and character. An- 
other unworthy incentive to subdivision is 
the desire to get school-houses near enough 
to be nurseries for infants, an utter perver- 
sion of the purposes of a school. 

Subdivision produces inability to support 
a good school ; this poverty produces disor- 
der. The children will not respect the coops 
that are too often prepared for their recep- 
tion ; they cannot respect a cheap teacher : 
there results demoralization to the school, 
and ultimately to the community. 

The general evils attendant upon minute 
subdivision of territory are aggravated by 
special evils peculiar to the nature of the 
case. The business of the district is not 
transacted in a systematic manner; no delib- 
erative body discusses its necessities, hears 
suggestions for its improvement, or keeps 
a record of its proceedings as a guide to 
future action. The pure democracy use 



20 THE SCHOOL AND THE FA^IILY. 

their privilege principally in deciding who 
shall control the pittance of patronage ; then 
comes in the most unseemly nepotism to 
give the finishing blow in the murder of a 
school. 

When we add the neighborhood animosi- 
ties resulting from scrambles after territory 
and schools, we have a fair recapitulation of 
the evils resulting from minute subdivision. 

As intimated in the beginning, this philos- 
ophy has been developed inductively, though 
treated subjectively. The results alluded to 
throughout the work are not simply what 
might occur under given circumstances, but 
what have actually occurred in the Am(?rican 
attempt at popular education. The writer 
has seen in the leading states of the Union 
what he chooses to call the created evils of 
legislation at work sapping the efficiency of 
education and the welfare of society with it. 

It is not easy to write with philosophic 
composure when the theme recalls the intel- 
lectual and moral destruction of so many 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE DISTRICT. 21 

tlioiisands of a promising generation whose 
maturity the country needs. 

The nation has been so blind to the real 
condition of tilings as to listen with rapt 
attention to repeated enlogiums on the little 
school-houses dotting the land. When one 
knows how many of these structures may 
well bear on their portals the flaming in- 
scription, ''Who enters here leaves hope be- 
hind," the sight of them is more likely to 
awaken a shudder than a thrill of joy. 

It is an encouraging sign, however, that 
educational thought is moving against minute 
subdivision, and in favor of rational organi- 
zation. Several states have obliterated sub- 
district lines, and have organized educational 
work on the basis of the township system. 

But the old evils are largely entailed upon 
the new system : the so-called school-houses 
having an existence are permitted to settle 
the question of how many schools are to be 
supported in the township. 

Poverty, then, affects discipline by making 



22 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

it impossible to secure suitable school-houses, 
apparatus, and competent teachers. 

2d. Free communities control their own 
property. The ability to support a good 
school would be null without willingness on 
the part of the people to advance the funds 
necessary to put the school in order. 

3d. The discipline of the school must nec- 
essarily be affected by the condition of public 
sentiment in the community. The children 
imbibe their character from every adult of 
their acquaintance: the teacher is but one 
among many who have access to them dur- 
ing the day. His efforts to inculcate subor- 
dination will not prosper while vicious asso- 
ciates are instructing the children that rebell- 
ion and license are the proj^er order of life, 
and the only things that are manly. His 
corrections will not have the desired effect 
while a neighborhood tells tlie children that 
they are martyrs, that the teacher is their 
enemy, and that they should retaliate their 
wrongs upon him at the earliest possible day. 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE DISTRICT. 23 

Unless the teaclier's precepts find a fair 
degree of corroboration outside, they will 
but produce irritation and increase the dis- 
order. Instances are on record where teach- 
ers who wanted order have been thrown out 
of the school -house by the large boys, and 
the neighborhood laughed at the joke. 

That is not a commendable state of senti- 
ment w^here such boys become the heroes of 
breakfast-tables. Yet the writer has in mind 
a school in which, after one teacher had been 
thrown out with a broken leg, his successor 
escaped the same fate only by his quickness 
of action and the rapidity with which he 
administered bruisesr 

Instead of being frowned down by the 
community, and taught to hang their heads 
with shame after the first offence, those un- 
fortunate boys came back with the spirit of 
heroes in search of fresh laurels. These are, 
of course, exceptional cases ; but they serve 
to illustrate how important an. element of 
discipline is law-abiding public sentiment in 



24: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

a comminnty. License has its fascinations 
for the joungj and even in the best-ordered 
communities the children are exposed to the 
corrupting example and instruction of too 
many bad persons. 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 25 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 

The parents are in order — 1st, when they 
appreciate the value of education to the 
child ; 2d, when they are wise in the daily 
management of their children's time, with 
a view to school duties and relations; 3d, 
when they are pro23erly affected towards the 
school, and thereby sustain its management. 

1st. It is a great misfortune to children, 
and a great source of disturbance in dis- 
cipline, when parents have no lively sense 
of the value of education. It is common 
for parents of limited culture to regard edu- 
cation as a mere instrumentality in the trans- 
action of" business, and that a smattering of 
reading, writing, and computation will an- 
swer all the purposes of life. 

They overlook entirely the higher nature 
of the child — the existence of mental and 



26 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

moral faculties ; the capacity of these facul- 
ties for growth and development, and the 
relation of this growth and development to 
happiness and usefulness. They are deficient 
in a proper ideal of maturity and character, 
and fail to appreciate the germs intrusted to 
their care. Though they are not wanting in 
affection, yet they see only the germs of 
physical growth, and are unaware that their 
ideals are only adult children. Dr. Young 
speaks of "hoary youth," and there is a 
world of meaning in the expression. 

Among the finer phases of human life is 
that of the j^oor but wise widow making the 
most painful personal sacrifices in order to 
procure that education which she knows her 
child needs. The contrast is that of her op- 
ulent neighbor sending his children to an 
incompetent and inexperienced teacher, and 
fearing the effects of over-education. 

There is no such thing as over-education ; 
but where this bugbear haunts the imagi- 
nations of parents, they will not second the 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 27 

teacher's efforts to awaken emulation and 
ambition. 

While there is no such thing as over-educa- 
tion, there is, however, such a thing as mal- 
education ; and the notion of over-education 
has arisen from a confusion of ideas. True 
education strengthens the common -sense of 
the individual, while mal-education may leave 
him an utter imbecile. 

Wliere the parents do not approve of cult- 
ure, the teacher's efforts to diffuse it will meet 
with friction, and the order of the school will 
be disturbed. 

2d. Punctuality and regularity of attend- 
ance are eminently essential to the good order 
of a school. The teacher arranges his plans 
on the assumption that his pupils will be 
regular and punctual in their attendance. 
The teacher rules through his system. Ab- 
sence and tardiness tend to break into and 
demoralize that system. 

There is no doubt that parents are mainly 
responsible for absence and tardiness : they 



28 THE SCHOOL Ai^D THE FAMILY. 

could suppress them almost entirely if tliej^ 
would. 

That parents do not suppress absence and 
tardiness is due to three causes — viz., 1, want 
of systematic home government ; 2, thought- 
lessness or overweening sentimental indul- 
gence; 3, covetousness. 

In well-governed homes the children retire 
at a given time ; they rise ref reslied at a 
given time ; and after discharging their morn- 
ing duties in order, they start for school in 
season. Habits of procrastination and irreg- 
ularity will find them unprei^ared to move 
when schooltime arrives. Instead of retiring 
to rest at bedtime, to recuperate their strength 
and spirits for the demands of the coming 
day, many children are subjected to the forc- 
ing process of acquitting themselves in even- 
ing parties and entertainments. The time 
which should be devoted to repose is given 
to actual dissipation. The dissipation re- 
garded as respectable is attended with phys- 
ical, mental, and moral wear and tear just as 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR TUK PARENTS. 29 

truly as is the license wliicli society condemns. 
An adult dreads the ordeal of meeting tyran- 
nical custom in the night, because his judg- 
ment tells him it will be a tax on all his pow- 
ers. But an adult requires less rest than a 
youth, because he has his growth, has learned 
law, and has acquired a habit of husbanding 
his forces. Young people, on the contrary, 
have no conception of law ; prudence forms 
no part of their capital ; they are susceptible 
of the most intense excitement, and are en- 
tirely at its mercy; they rush headlong to 
prostration without experiencing a restrain- 
ing motive. To rob a child of its rest and 
expose it to the strain of night excitement 
is a sin attended w^th the most serious con- 
sequences. Parents who thus surrender their 
children to the tyranny of vicious custom 
inflict lasting injury upon the children and 
great disorder upon the school. The wearied 
young victims are apt to be late. But this is 
only an item in the disorder. They are op- 
pressed with a sinking lassitude, and have na'' 



30 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

zest for exertion ; their faculties are clouded 
and benumbed, making tliinkino^ difficult and 
repulsive ; their minds are absent, wandering 
back to the scenes of excitement and dwell- 
ing upon new-found emotions. The faithful 
teacher sees and feels the change with dis- 
may. The school of yesterday, which was 
beginning to feel the spur of emulation, has 
been thrown back almost irretrievably by the 
shock of outside forces. Yet who will say 
that this teacher is incapable of governing 
because the accident of a night has intro- 
duced such disorder into his school ? It is 
not sufficient to the purposes of government 
that the teacher be in order ; it is necessary 
that the other factors be likewise in order. 
He who watches the clock, and sees that the 
school-child retires before nine is governing 
the school ; he who countenances late hours 
is introducing disorder. 

In the above we have depicted a fault in 
family government that is so universal as to 
be national. It is not only destroying the 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 31 

order of our schools, but it is also weakening 
the quality of our people ; it is introducing 
the inevitable consequence of excess, human 
deterioration. The reaction of this night ex- 
citement is seen in a series of evil conse- 
quences. The more delicate children succumb 
to the unnatural strain and disappear from 
school. Where are they to be found there- 
after? Not in the broad arena of action, 
wielding the forces of a world. Many have 
furnished business to undertakers and tomb- 
stone manufacturers, while the mission of the 
rest is to remind these enterprising establish- 
ments that business is not in danger. Night 
excitement has for its fruit an army of candi- 
dates for early -grave accommodations. But 
the dissolution of the body is preceded by 
the wail of dying hope. Could our parents 
hear that continuous wail from the myriad 
victims of misgovernment, they would be 
prompt in getting their children to bed. 

But the children who survive the friglitful 
ordeal in consequence of their great recupera- 



32 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

tive physical powers are also sufferers ; they 
bear the scars of intellectual and moral reac- 
tion ; their higher nature is seared by the 
hot iron of injustice. The good instructor 
who has an ideal of capacity to which he 
would have his pupil attain knows that he 
must first arouse in that pupil the emotions 
of emulation and ambition. Growth of pow- 
er is conditioned in emotion; there must be 
the will born of confidence and hope. Tem- 
porary or spasmodic emotion will not supply 
the conditions of development ; the emotion 
must be sustained. There is a limit to the 
recovery of emotion from the dej)ressing 
reactions of dissipation; the child at length 
becomes incapable of the proper emotion, 
and goes to swell the ranks of passive fail- 
ures. 

We want a national sensibility that will 
abhor the practice of making children ape 
the ways of maturity. If we protect them 
from excitement by jealously guarding their 
hours of repose, we do much to assure their 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 33 

good bejiavior in school and tlieir success in 
life. But do cliildren not need diversion 'i 
They do ; but not after nine o'clock at night ; 
at that point their sovereign need is refresh- 
ing sleep. Under healthy government the 
children will wake with the lark and rouse 
the household at dawn. Under right living, 
mankind will, as they should, wake up w^ith 
the rest of nature. A household sleepy in 
the morning bespeaks violated law. But 
what about the lessons that require late study ? 
The teacher is censurable for assigning such 
lessons. He is employed to instruct the 
children ; he has no right to compel them 
to take time from their rest in order to in- 
struct themselves. He should, it is true, en- 
courage application, and enforce, if need be, a 
certain amount of it ; but he can err seriously 
by imposing heavy tasks. A household ruled 
on the principle of a time for everything, and 
everything in its time, will give not only 
punctual pupils, but also punctual men and 
women. 



34 THE SCHOOL A^T> THE FAMILY. 

But we have only begun the list of cumu- 
lative evils suggested by the fatal "nine." 
That hour marks a crisis in youth's daily 
history. If wakeful excitement continues 
beyond that point, there is death lurking in 
the minutes. 

Some well-meaning parents detain their 
children at home from time to time on the 
most trifling pretexts, thinking that the loss 
of a single day will not affect their progress 
materially ; or they let the children absent 
themselves on a mere freak. Eegularity is 
essential to close work and solid advance- 
ment, and a discouraged mind may And its 
cause in the absence of a single day. 

But the most unworthy cause of absence 
and tardiness is covetousness. Many parents 
discover a commercial value in the services 
of the child. They can estimate with very 
close accuracy the value of those services 
from year to year, up to that period when 
the law gives the little sufferer his release. 

That release is but a comfortless boon to 



COXDITTOXS OF ORDER FOR THE PAREXT:^. 35 

one who has been robbed of his youth, and 
who is now cast upon the world shorn of his 
strength, maimed in body, intellect, and soul. 

Xo, the commercial parent is not concerned 
with questions of over-education and indul- 
gence ; his motive in detaining his children 
from school is dollars and cents. If for 
form's sake he lets them put in an appear- 
ance occasionally, it is with the regret of the 
miser who sees a penny slipping from his 
hoard. 

This is not the relation of parent and 
child ; it is the relation of slave and master. 
The slavery that above all others cries to 
heaven for vengeance is the slavery of a 
helpless child who feels within himself the 
promptings to noble things, but is ground 
down to the dust by the heavy hand of au- 
thority. 

Xo parent has a right to discover a com- 
mercial value in his child. It is true that 
both natural and civil law give him the cus- 
tody of the child ; but it is not for com- 



36 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

mercial considerations. The custody is grant- 
ed as a tribute to the affections, and solely for 
the child's sake. It is presumed that the par- 
ent loves his child, and will provide for the 
wants of its growing existence more complete- 
ly than any other party. 

Love is not a task-master ; it sacrifices it- 
self for its object ; it rejoices in giving, not 
taking. Where could we presume that the 
child would be more likely to find justice 
than in the bosom of its parent ? 

The only services from the child to which 
the parent is justly entitled are obedience, 
respect, and filial love. But these are given 
in exchange for love ; he may forfeit them 
by ignoring his own share of the contract. 

But we are not arguing that children 
should be idlers. It is contrary to their 
nature to be idle ; they are called bundles of 
activities. Xature has certain things for the 
child to do ; the parent should give her a fair 
chance to work her purposes. It is then his 
duty to train his child to industry, economy, 



CONDITIONS OF ORDEK FOR THE PARENTS. 87 

and practical skill in doing things as a prep- 
aration for a useful life. 

But it should be remembered that the aim 
is training ; and the training should not be 
exhausting. 

If material value results from the activity 
expended in the training, there is no wrong. 
This is property which the parent has right- 
fully acquired, just as the state finds property 
in the activities of the criminals it is trying 
to reform. But it would be wrong in either 
party to covet such property. 

The wisest parent will do well to leave a 
very large part of the training to nature ; 
and a serious mistake may be made, even, in 
calling in the aid of the schoolmaster at too 
early a day. 

3d. To be properly affected towards the 
school is to be disposed to do the school 
justice. The parent who is properly affected 
towards the school will not pass hasty judg- 
ment on the teacher's action on the ex parte 
testimony of the child, and conclude that a 



38 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FA^kllLT. 

wrong is clone because the child happens to 
think so. Where a wrong is suspected the 
teacher will not be condemned without a 
hearing, nor till after all available testimony 
has been weighed. 

The most important evidence in making 
up just judgment is the evidence of one's 
senses. Parents should see the discipline to 
which their children are subjected, and upon 
which so much depends. It is entirely un- 
accountable on what grounds parents neg- 
lect the duty of school inspection. But this 
neglect is so general throughout tlie land 
that parental visitation is a rare exception. 

It would seem that natural concern for 
the welfare of the child would impel the par- 
ent to visit the school and possess himself of 
the most absolute of all evidence, that of per- 
sonal observation, in regard to the discipline. 
That there is not almost continually a sprink- 
ling of anxious fathers and mothers looking 
in upon the discipline of their children is 
phenomenal, and almost puzzles philosophy. 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 39 

The fact bears on its face a terrible cliarge, 
that of indifference as to what manner of 
niatnrity the chiklren may take on. To a de- 
gree, the charge is snstained by facts. Otli- 
er parents compromise with their consciences 
by snpposing that hired watching will suffice. 
We shall discuss hired watching farther on. 

Bad discipline exists because it exists un- 
seen ; it would wither nnder the common- 
sense of parental scrutiny. The difficult}^ 
with hired watching is that it does not see 
with the eye of affection. There can be no 
substitute for parental visitation. Discipline 
will lag and be misinterpreted until parents 
discharge this sacred duty. 

It is common to hear parents discussing 
the teacher. Such discussions are fruitless, 
unless those parents have seen that teacher 
at work. They cannot discuss profitably 
what they do not know ; they do not know 
the teacher whose work they have not seen. 

The parent who is properly affected rec- 
ognizes the necessity of having authority in 



40 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

the schoolroom, and will not weaken that 
authority by criticising the teacher in the 
presence of the child. All discussions of the 
teacher should be absolutely removed from 
the child's ear. To the child the teacher 
should be perfection. The child's own im- 
pressions of the school should be taken for 
just what they are worth ; but while he re- 
mains he should be required to respect the 
authority and superiority of the teacher. 
There is little chance for order where par- 
ents believe the teacher is unworthy of re- 
spect, and openly tell their children so. 

The parent who is properly affected w^ill 
remember that the teacher is in loco parentis, 
and that the cliild should carry to the school- 
room the same submissive allegiance which 
he renders at home. Under no circum- 
stances should the parent . encourage insub- 
ordination. It is a lesson in crime. Crime 
consists in a violation of law ; and he who 
has learned to trample upon the laws of the 
schoolroom is a criminal in all respects except 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 41 

the disgrace of legal punishment. lie is ripe 
for the commission of such trespasses as will 
place him behind prison-bars. 

We see in this instance the important re- 
lation existing between order in the school- 
room and order in the state, or public order. 

But the foundation of all is family order. 
If there is not a recognized authority at home, 
it will be difficult to secure recognition of au- 
thority elsewhere. 

Insubordination generally takes its rise at 
home, and springs from three causes — viz. : 
1st, conflict of authority ; 2d, abuse of au- 
tliority ; 3d, abdication of authority. 

A conflict of authority occurs when the 
father and mother have opposing wishes in 
regard to the child's conduct. The child, 
being unable to obey both, is led, after a 
period of confused volition, to disobey both. 
Abuse of authority occurs when unjust exac- 
tions are required from the child, or when 
unjust punishments are inflicted upon him. 
The effect is to arouse resentment, which is 



42 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAIkllLY. 

the forerunner of rebellion. Family trag- 
edies are but the collisions of wills which 
have been thrown out of their j)roper rela- 
tions either by conflict of authority or the 
abuse of it. A rebellious child is the fruit 
of faulty home discipline. Such a child is 
not a good subject for school discipline. 

Abdication of authority occurs when par- 
ents permit disobedience, and deliver the 
child over to its own inclinations. This is 
one of those amiable weaknesses which it is 
difficult to condemn. It results from large 
affection, which is of itself one of the grand- 
est qualities of humanity. The child is given 
to understand that he may obey his parent's 
wishes if it chances to be pleasant for him 
to do so. But if the obedience involves any 
personal discomfort or any violence to incli- 
nation, the kind parent would not for the 
world have him j^ut himself to anj incon- 
venience. 

The misguided aifection which abdicates 
authority may be at times so shocked Avith 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE PARENTS. 43 

the caprice of a spoiled cliild as to employ 
entreaty and remonstrance in order to re- 
strain it. But these only emphasize the ab- 
dication, and give the child additional assur- 
ance that he is a law unto himself. 

Authorities exist in the schoolroom and in 
the state; the child should be prepared to 
encounter them by experiencing a whole- 
some subjection at home. 

The will of the parent is the law of the 
household, beyond which there is no appeal, 
so long as he does not ti*anscend the jDrovis- 
ions of civil law. This will should be in- 
flexible on all points of duty and allegiance 
from the child. It may, if needed, employ 
force in order to secure submission, but will 
not push the force beyond the necessities of 
submission. The iirm, unyielding will of the 
just parent produces subordination; the iron 
will of the unjust parent drives his child 
into rebellion. 



44 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



CONDITIONS OF OBDEBFOR THE CHILDREN. 

The children are in order — 1st, when tliey 
are happy ; 2d, when they respect the teacher 
and his office ; 3d, when they feel interested 
in the school and have pride in its snccess. 

1st. The happy alone are tractable. This 
is a law of human existence. The pursuit 
of liappiness is the mainspring of human 
activity. Happiness is fruition, content; un- 
hapi)iness is want, uneasiness. Happiness is 
a phase of love; and love is submission. 

Volition has its origin in the desires; the 
desires originate in want; they were created 
for the express purpose of making the person 
unhappy, so that he would will to supply the 
want in order to escape the unhappiness. 
The desires are blessings without which hu- 
man existence would suddenly cease; for 
reason alone is inadequate to the preserva- 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE CHILDREN. 45 

tion of life. In an important sense, then, the 
desires are onr masters — imj^erious, despotic 
masters — enforcing their authority with the 
sanction of keenest torture. 

The desires of chiklhood are few and 
simple, but intense, in consequence of the 
excessive demands of growth. The desires 
at this period are mostly physical, as they 
have the task both of sustaining life and 
providing increase of structure. These im- 
perative physical desires may be summed up 
in the desire for food, the desire for exer- 
cise, and the desire for repose — three things 
absolutely essential to physical development. 

Children have one imperious moral desire — 
viz., the desire of love. In addition to these 
desires, they have susceptibilities, which are 
either incipient desires or the germs of fut- 
ure desires. 

Xow, when abundant provision is made for 
the imperious desires, and reasonable provis- 
ion for the susceptibilities, the child is in- 
tensely haj^py and tractable. It is in conse- 



46 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

quence of the susceptibility of the child to 
enjoy sweet sounds and beautiful sights that 
music and pictures are introduced into the 
schoolroom, and shrubbery into the play- 
ground, as aids to discipline. When the 
conditions of happiness are understood and 
supplied, much has been done for order. 

This relation of happiness to obedience is 
universal. Suffering armies have been saved 
from mutiny, not by the authority of the 
commander, but by his skill in recalling their 
minds from their physical sufferings to the 
happiness of contemj)lating the recollections 
of the past, the merits of their cause, and 
future rewards. What is the inspiration to 
do and dare but an overwhelming sense of 
happiness which stifles minor tortures ? 

The authority of a national government is 
tolerated when its people are happy; when 
unhappiness seizes them, the government is 
menaced. This is right ; governments exist 
for the happiness of the governed. 

In the schoolroom the teacher cannot ex- 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE CHILDREN. 47 

pect proper submission to liis will while the 
children are lashed into agony by one or 
other of their despotic desires. There occurs 
a conflict of authority which demoralizes the 
volition of the child and disturbs the order 
of the school. 

2d. Respect for superior ability and the 
functions of authority are everywhere the con- 
ditions of willing subordination. Unwilling 
subordination is not discipline ; it is tyranny. 
There will not be order in the school if the 
teacher is jeered and insulted by his pupils 
out of school. This may or may not be owing 
to the teacher's fault, but it is nevertheless 
destructive of order while it continues. 

3d. Discipline is much advanced when the 
children realize that the school is theirs as 
completely as it is the teacher's; that he is 
only a necessary part of it. When this point 
has been reached, there will be need of but 
few commands from the teacher; the neces- 
sities of the school may be freely discussed, 
and the orders issued by the common voice of 



48 THE SCHOOL A^B THE FAMILY. 

the pupils. Discipline has indeed triumphed 
when the j)upils take upon themselves the 
task of preserving ordei*. 

The most orderly schools in this country 
are governed by the public opinion of the 
school. It has been the writer's good fort- 
une to see several schools which have reach- 
ed this grand consummation. In these cases 
the presence or absence of the teacher made 
no difference ; the pupils were on their hon- 
or, and that sufficed for order. 

We are searching for the nature of that 
power of control which produces and sustains 
order in a school; and we begin already to 
see that it is a snored power. We get the 
highest control over others by teaching them, 
both by precept and examj^le, to control them- 
selves. We control most powerfully by indi- 
rection ; the word of the pojDular leader will 
control millions to his purpose, while that of 
the titled monarch is set at nauo^ht. ^N'one 
but a moral power could bring about the 
conditions which we have so far found to be 
essential to order in a school. 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 49 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 

The teaclier is in order — 1st, when lie is 
thoroughly master of himself ; 2d, when he 
possesses the clearest mastery of the subjects 
he is presumed to teach ; 3d, when he ap- 
prehends correctly the relations surrounding 
and centring in him. 

1st. Self-mastery is character. Character 
is a life conformed to the moral law. It is 
a growth ; it is the seal of man's maturity ; 
it is the symbol of victory in the struggles 
with the evil propensities of human nature. 

To the man of character life has become a 
science ; his volition is no longer controlled 
by impulse, but by fixed and definite princi- 
ples of action. His principles are his iden- 
tity ; if they are defeated in a single instance, 
he is humiliated in his own esteem. To him 
any shock to self-respect is more painful than 
D 



50 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

the criticisms of the jDiiblic. His ready sense 
of rectitude and propriety, his conscience, he 
prizes above all other considerations. He is 
under the dominion of conscience. 

Deportment may be formed by external in- 
fluences; but character is shaped only from 
within. The world is too apt to mistake 
deportment for character; but the deception 
is short-lived. There come occasions in the 
history of every man which test his quali- 
ties, and tear away the mask from his real 
strength or weakness. 

Comjjlaisance is but the shadow of char- 
acter ; it is folly to ape the form and ignore 
the substance. A habit of appearing good is 
pleasant to the eye, but deceptive and treach- 
erous to the experience; but a habit of be- 
ing good is beyond all price; it is the rock 
upon which society rests. 

Perhaps nothing in the history of society 
has been so completely perverted and abused 
as politeness. It should be the mark of 
greatness of soul ; but it has too often been 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 51 

studied in all its points and j)ut on as a gar- 
ment to conceal the designs of a villain. 
Every community in civilized countries has 
had its experience with polished rascality, 
which for the moment has eclipsed the 
merits of virtuous and honorable men who 
chanced to have some angles in their man- 
ners. 

We would not defend coarseness, nor make 
it the infallible sign of excellence ; but we 
would have that breeding which begins at 
the core and finishes on the surface. We 
have had abundance of whitened sepulchres ; 
the type is immortalized in " The mildest- 
mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut 
a throat." What we want is character ; and 
we shall be glad to have it polite. The 
amenities of life which we prize so highly 
have had their origin in innate kindness. 

But character is essential to discij^line in a 
school; it gives a rallying -point for order, 
and gives to precept the sanction of example. 
None but a settled character is competent to 



52 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

preside over the discipline of a school. The 
children have more logic than they are gen- 
erally credited with, and are quick to detect 
the variance between precept and example. 
They are loath to cleave to duty when they 
perceive it to be a one-sided affair. 

There are stages in character. First there 
is uncertain character ; then there is either 
character or want of character. We choose 
to use these terms in making the distinc- 
tions, in order that the grand word charac- 
ter may be saved to a S23ecific and definite 
meaning. It means such a loyalty to con- 
science as will not deviate a hair's -breadth 
though the heavens fall. It means a deter- 
mination to do right because it is right, re- 
gardless of consequences. It means the cour- 
age to endure pain and loss, if need be, in or- 
der to vindicate the right. 

That is not character which does right 
when it is convenient or politic, but does 
wrong when unobserved or when trial comes. 
Doubtless many people are self-deceived as 



CONDITIONS OF OEDER FOR THE TEACHER. 53 

to wliicli of the stages they are in, and may 
imagine that they have character because 
they have never been tem23ted to do wrong. 

Only the person of chai'acter is competent 
to preserve order. The villain can only 
poison and demoralize ; the person of nncer- 
tain character is imbecile. 

Uncertain character is an accom^^animent 
of youth, the period of the strife between 
good intentions and bad propensities. The 
actions of the individual at this period are 
marked by the most striking contrasts and 
inconsistencies, without any iixed centre of 
motive. One so loose in conduct is not 
adapted to impart stability to others. When 
wrangles occur between the child-teacher and 
the other children under his charge, the par- 
ents will be apt to take sides with their own 
children as against the stranger. 

Whether this uncertain character will de- 
velop into character or w^ant of character is 
often a mere problem of circumstances. In 
any case, it imports disaster to the order of a 



54 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

school when persons in this stage are ap- 
pointed to exercise its government. 

Yonth is not a crime ; bnt it is a crime to 
employ that youth for purposes to which it 
is not fitted. The purpose to which it is 
least fitted is that of allaying the turbulent 
and often disordered impulses of childhood. 
It needs the experience of self-mastery in 
order to read correctly the childish nature 
and be prepared to deal with it. Maturity 
may be hastened by effort ; but it is also 
true that many persons never pass the thresh- 
old of youth, and die young though they live 
to be fourscore. 

Character not only gives the teacher influ- 
ence in the schoolroom, but it also protects 
him from being misrejDresented and misun- 
derstood outside, and so contributes to other 
conditions of order. 

We have said that character is shaped 
from within. Without introspection the for- 
mation of a symmetrical character is almost 
an impossibility. What do we see on looking 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 55 

within ? We beliold a complex structure of 
organs, faculties, and powers, rising in a given 
order of importance, all having certain func- 
tions to perform, all having certain relations 
to sustain to each other and to the surround- 
ing universe ; we see, in short, '' IIow fearful- 
ly and wonderfully we are made !" We see 
the temple of man's personality, the house 
intrusted to his special care, and for which 
he is held to a solemn accountability ; we 
see the purposes of its parts, the conditions 
of their health, and the method by which 
the house is kept in order. 

We take an inventory of our possessions, 
note the purposes to which they were de- 
signed, and begin our first act of govern- 
ment. That government consists in restrain- 
ing rebellious parts, and rousing into activity 
others which have a tendency to lie dormant. 
When the evil propensities are held in check, 
and all the faculties roused to the full dis- 
charge of their functions, we have an harmo- 
nious existence — we have a stable man. 



56 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAJ^nLY. 

But this government is not a phase of self- 
ishness, nor of self-snfficiency. Eising above 
all the other faculties and powers in the hu- 
man composition are enthroned the natural 
and spiritual affections, craving objects be- 
yond self, and drawing man into communion 
with his Maker and his kind. This is the 
status of character — an enlightened will in- 
fluenced by love. This is the character req- 
uisite to the preservation of civil order, of 
which a school is but a phase. 

"We will not discuss here the influence of 
character in shaping the children's lives ; our 
present purpose is to show its relation to 
discipline. In order to do this, we are 
obliged to reveal its nature and the manner 
of its acquisition. 

2d. Attention is an essential and powerful 
element of order. The absolute calm of a 
" spell - bound " audience is a thing well 
known ; and its laws are in a measure un- 
derstood. It is not regarded as an act of 
volition in compliment to the speaker. It 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 57 

is known to be due to the relation of mind 
to ideas, of Avliicli the speaker is but the 
exciting cause. 

lie arrests attention by making vividly 
present a train of ideas which recall the 
wandering activities of the mind to a con- 
centration in a giyen direction. This con- 
centration produces stillness. While the en- 
forced stillness of a few moments is painful, 
audiences have been known to hang for hours 
on the words of an effective speaker with- 
out any discomfort, and to regret even then 
that the end was come. 

The power of vivid ideas in securing or- 
der is not limited to any class of humani- 
ty ; the vile and low, as well as the wor- 
thy and cultivated, are equally susceptible 
to its influence. This power has been so 
often illustrated as to give rise to the prov- 
erb, ''They came to scoff, but remained to 
pray." 

Cultivated persons acquire measurable con- 
trol over their attention, and can direct it 



58 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

at will to given subjects. Training likewise 
produces habit ; and so, after naucli practice, 
there may result a habit of giving attention. 
But children are under the control of phys- 
ical impulses and mental fancies, and, in 
consequence, they are prone to manifesta- 
tions of activity that are not in keeping 
with order. But they are not exempt from 
the power of ideas; and this power steps 
in to win them from themselves. 

But there is no flashing of ideas in rote- 
teaching. It proves an irksome drudgery to 
the children, increasing their discomfort and 
multiplying the tendencies to disorder. A 
parody on true teaching is that process of 
giving the children text -books and telling 
them to get knowledge and culture for them- 
selves — knowledge and culture which per- 
chance the teacher does not possess. Noth- 
ing is better fitted to discourage the learner 
utterly, and make him distrust his mental 
powers, than such a course. Discourage a 
child by mechanical teaching, and you pre- 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 59 

pare him to become either an adult dolt or 
a distinguished reprobate. 

Mechanical teaching is worse than none ; 
it is a positive injury : it perverts the child- 
ish nature, and is largely responsible for the 
imbecility and crime which aiiiict the country. 

In the United States to-day vast sums are 
annually expended in the production of in- 
jury to individual hai^piness and to the 
national welfare. It would seem that evil 
is plentiful enough without paying for it. 
Many taxpayers have had this thought dawn 
upon them, and have wisely decided to jDay 
as little as possible for the evils imposed 
upon them. In many communities the pub- 
lic school is practically repudiated, though 
the forms are retained. The forms are en- 
dured in order to comfort some people who 
think forms are capable of accomplishing 
something, and because forms are necessary 
in order to secure state aid. 

That mastery of the subject which intro- 
duces the power of ideas into the govern- 



60 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

ment of a school is wanting — 1st, in those 
persons who never had a solid grasp of any 
subject — that is, persons who have been su- 
perficially educated, or rather ma/-educated ; 
2d, those persons who were once in fair 
mental condition, but have lost their stu- 
dious habits. 

He who ceases to advance in knowledge 
must recede. The individual who some time 
ago reached a resting-place in his mental 
achievements is properly called a fossil. A 
fossil is a dead thing retaining some hints 
of its former self. So, too, knowledge may 
die, and yet retain resemblances to its living 
state. 

Yivid ideas mean literally live ideas, pul- 
sating ideas. There is in live knowledge a 
circulation, just as there is a circulation with- 
in the frame of the living animal. This cir- 
culation in knowledge is called the law of 
mental association. The sum total of knowl- 
edo^e is a unit. We have a universe in which 
all things known and unknown are tied to- 



CONDITIOXS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. CI 

getlier into one whole by the interweaving 
strands of rehxtions. These strands are clues 
which the mind loves to follow, and which 
the cultivated mind must follow. When a 
new idea is discovered, it must be adjusted. 
The mind runs down the existing strands to 
see that the connection is complete, and in 
its progress illuminates and vitalizes the pre- 
vious wisdom. Again, the mind gathers im- 
petus for new conquests by swift excursions 
over existing lines. 

Herein we see the mental circulation and 
the vitalizing effects produced by fresh in- 
vestigations. The reviews necessitated by 
research, and impelled by discovery, bring 
out our old knowledge into greater distinct- 
ness, and adom ^t with new meanings. 

By such discipline the mind becomes so 
familiar with its strands that it acquires a 
habit of sweeping through them with light- 
ning speed on the least exciting occasion. 
Then ideas do not come singly, but in 
trains — for the mind must sweep the strands. 



62 THE SCHOOL A^D THE FA^IILY. 

Stop jour progress and joii stop the ne- 
cessities for excursions; soon yon stop the 
habit of excursions, and ere long the old, un- 
visited stores become mere reminiscences in 
memory. "When the mind would get at 
them, it must stumble with crutches over 
ground which it once swej^t with the swift- 
ness and ease of Mercurj^ It adheres anx- 
iously to any old waymarks that may be left, 
and hugs the ruts as its only salvation from 
being utterly lost. Gone are the trains of 
ideas ; gone the power to captivate the mind 
and recall it from its disorder. 

What remains ? Nothing but a process of 
hooking up the dead and stale ideas of the 
past and forcing them into unwilling minds 
that have no appetite for even wholesome 
food. Either that or words — words, the coun- 
terfeits of knowledge — a leaning on the lan- 
guage of the text -book instead of on the 
possessions of tlie mind. 

It is characteristic of teachers who are 
not masters of their subjects to be very con- 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 03 

scieiitious about compelling the cliildreii to 
master them. The state of the appetite 
and the cpialitj of the food are altogether 
overlooked, while the business of cramming 
by quantity goes grimly and persistently on. 
There is an old adage about the ability to 
lead a horse to water, and the inability to 
make him drink. The animal can protect 
his organs of nutrition from abuse ; but the 
poor child undertakes to gorge himself with 
the innutritions things set before him, and 
in consequence gets his mind into the ut- 
most disorder. So great and permanent is 
this disorder that it has given rise to the 
term "unlearn," a word familiar to good 
teachers who have been compelled to re- 
ceive the relics of mismanagement. 

In alluding to superficial teachers, we do 
not necessarily mean the young; nor, in al- 
hiding to fossil teachers, do we necessarily 
mean the old. The distinction occurs on 
inherent condition, not on age; the terms 
are frequently reversed. 



64 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

Kone but a progressive teaclier is compe- 
tent to discipline a school. In addition to 
the laws already laid down, we may add 
that the discovery in him of any halting 
ignorance or want of clearness will imme- 
diately imdermine his authority by weaken- 
ing res23ect for him. 

The mark of a progressive teacher is in- 
tellectual diligence inspired by a thirst after 
knowledge. lie may be known by the com- 
pany he keeps — that is, by the books he reads 
and the studies he pursues out of scliooh 
Unless his record is satisfactory on these 
points, the presumption is against his power 
to produce and sustain order. 

3d. We use the term aj)2)rehension of re- 
lations rather than knowledge of relations. 
A knowledo:e of all the relations centring: in 
a particular school is something that would 
require long -continued observation, even if 
the task did not prove infinite. But a ready 
apprehension of relations, accompanying dil- 
igent observation, will enable a person to 



CONDITIOXS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 05 

begin the great work of disciplining a 
school. 

The manifestations of disorder are effects 
of given causes. A very ordinary mind will 
be conscious of the disorder; but ready ap- 
prehension of relations in the teacher w^ill 
enable him to detect the cause lying back 
of the manifestation. 

We are now prepared for an analogy 
which is true and complete, and through 
which the whole nature of discipline dawns 
upon us. Disorder is of the nature of dis- 
ease ; the teacher is the physician on whom 
devolves the task of cure; and discipline is 
a remedial system. The j)hysician is latent 
while the school is in order, and then the 
instructor has the floor ; but the physician 
steps forward at the first symptoms of ill- 
ness, reads its nature, and begins its treat- 
ment. 

In medicine, a failure to understand the 
symptoms leads to disaster in the treatment; 
the quack, by his blunders, makes the diffi- 
E 



66 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

culty chronic instead of driving it from tlie 
system in its acute stages. Moral disease is 
more intricate than physical maladies, and re- 
quires a higher order of skill and science in 
its treatment. 

As we ascend in the scale of being, we dis- 
cover more comjDlex structure, more delicate- 
ly interwoven relations. We rise tlirough the 
physical and mental before we reach the mor- 
al nature. But, in addition to greater com- 
plexity, there is the greater difficulty of mor- 
al investigation. Tlie things of the j^hysical 
nature may be seen by the physical eye, felt 
by the physical touch, and their relations de- 
termined by a simple exercise of intellectual 
apprehension; but the things of the moral 
nature are apparent only to moral discern- 
ment. Besides, as moral disorder often re- 
sults from jDhysical causes, the moral phy- 
sician must be wise in physical things. It 
is therefore a higher science. 

And yet nations throw the strongest legal 
safeguards around medicine, while they leave 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. P)7 

the flood-gates open for the most unlimited 
moral quackery. The evils of physical mal- 
practice strike mainly at individuals, who 
have refuge at least in death ; while moral 
malpractice strikes at society, the individual 
that never dies. 

The wise teacher, then, will ^\\t a disor- 
derly school under treatment. Time is al- 
ways an element in treatment ; it is essential 
to have faith in remedies and in patience ; a 
sudden transition from chaos to order is an 
impossibility. 

The disorder may take its rise in the school- 
room, produced, perhaps, by physical discom- 
fort. In that case, the remedy consists in im- 
proving the seats, and attending to the warmth, 
ventilation, and all the other conditions of 
happiness. But the child may come freight- 
ed with tendencies to disorder imposed upon 
him outside. In this case the treatment be- 
comes more complex and cure less sudden. 
It is the teacher's duty to reclaim this child, 
and to do it with the least possible loss to the 



68 THE SCHOOL AKD THE FAMILY. 

school. It is not only liis duty, but also his 
interest — ^the most direct means of securing 
order. 

People's notions are generally mere notions ; 
they are not conclusions founded on any ex- 
tensive ratiocinations. When the teacher has 
apprehended the speciiic causes of disorder in 
his district, it is his business to get the people 
out of their notions — to make them think; 
that is, it is his business to be an influence. 
He will And ways and means of getting access 
to their thoughts. It has been done, over and 
over; the notions of communities have been 
completely revolutionized by good schools ; 
and the cliildren have often proved the most 
efiicient missionaries. It is only a problem 
in human nature which is everywhere the 
same ; the teacher should not despair of suc- 
cess. 

Apprehension of relations is a great power 
in the teacher, for it enables him to utilize 
immediate and present facts in his govern- 
ment and instruction. 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACHER. 69 

It will, perhaps, be already inferred that 
the teacher cannot enforce order by a mere 
act of will. A lirni will is a valuable ele- 
ment in the production of order when sup- 
plemented with the other conditions. There 
are no fruits of human activity without in- 
tense and sustained volition. It is unfortu- 
nate that most of the will-power in the 
world is expended in behalf of selfisliness. 
This selfishness will appear in the govern- 
ment of the school-room. 

We have said that it requires very little 
mind to be conscious of disturbance. Self- 
ishness is annoyed by the manifestations of 
disorder, and wills their summary suppres- 
sion. Its pride of authority is oif ended by 
failure to comply with its commands ; and 
violence is enlisted to give the sanction of 
fear. But the violence does not always have 
the credit of an external though mistaken 
motive ; it too often occurs as a simple ex- 
plosion of the teacher's anger, and is there- 
fore intensely selfish. 



70 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

The worst disorders in schools are pro- 
duced by disorderly teachers. This tyran- 
nical self-assertion may so far triumph as to 
produce the silence of the grave. Even then 
we have the antipodes of order ; for we have 
a company of unhappy children learning to 
hate authority and restraint, and ready to in- 
dulge in the wildest license as soon as the 
"fear-inspired restraint is removed. We have 
children who will wield power as brutally, 
when it is placed in their own hands, as 
they found it wielded over themselves. 

We want strong will in the world ; but we 
want the will that is not selfish ; we want the 
will of Howard, of Wilberforce, of Florence 
Nightingale, of Bergh. The end of govern- 
ment is order. That end will not be at- 
tained by wrong methods. In the majority 
of cases we can but approximate to order ; 
we approximate by creating tendencies tow- 
ard order and removing the tendencies to 
disorder. There is no other way. If vic- 
tory is slow in some cases, there is comfort 



CONDITIONS OF ORDER FOR THE TEACH KK. 71 

in the consciousness of some advance, be it 
never so small. When the case is thorough- 
ly understood, and when proper methods are 
brought to bear, then there is use for the ut- 
most will-power in pushing the conflict be- 
tween good and evil. 



72 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



CAUSES OF DISORDER. 

In the pathology of our remedial system 
there are found three general causes of dis- 
order : viz., 1st, natm-al deformity; 2d, mere 
neglect ; 3d, the reaction of injustice. The 
first gives incapacity for principles, the sec- 
ond want of principles, and the third bad 
principles. 

1st. A few unfortunate children are born 
without a moral nature, and are consequent- 
ly incapable of any moral life. They are 
helpless wards on the sympathy and charity 
of others, and seldom enter among the prob- 
lems of school discipline. 

2d. Children may have such negative or 
passive influences about them that their 
moral qualities are in no way excited. In 
this case we have a mere animal existence, 
or what is called vegetation. The moral 



CAUSES OF DISORDEK. 73 

powei's become torpid by disuse ; and the 
principal motives to action are the physical 
sensations. We have a sort of stupid and 
meaningless amiability, an utter absence of vo- 
lition, while the conditions of physical com- 
fort are supplied. But mere amiability is 
not order ; on the contrary, it constantly 
jeopardizes order by its want of moral per- 
ception. The uncultured child is not always 
amiable ; it may be possessed of a comba- 
tive and undiscriminating obtuseness result- 
ing from its own innate propensities. 

In either case the child is out of order. 
There is order only where there is intelli- 
gent volition — that is, where obedience is im- 
mediately enforced by the dictates of an en- 
lightened conscience. This point is reached, 
however, through the employment of many 
mediate forces. Some of these mediate forces 
have been hinted at already, and others will 
be discussed farther on. "Where there is only 
moral torpidity, the task of government is 
much less difficult than where there has been 
moral perversion. 



74 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

3d. Torpidity or moral nonentity can only 
occur where there are no schools. A school 
excites the mental and moral faculties, and 
tends to make the children either better or 
worse than they would naturally vegetate. 
There is little cliance for pure vegetation in 
this country now, our schools are so universal, 
and have been so long established ; they have 
touched several generations. The effect, how- 
ever, has been mostly for the worse. The 
country is full of notions, a result unques- 
tionably due to the schools. The aggressive 
reprobates who poison the morals and order 
of communities are undoubtedly the products 
of the schools. We mean by this, of course, 
mismanaged schools, which have inflicted the 
most wide -spread injustice and consequent 
disorder. 

We have reached, then, the j)revailing cause 
of disorder, and shall examine it closely. In- 
justice is a violation of personal rights, and is 
a specific form of wrong. Wrong is an act 
or omission at variance with the will of the 



CAUSES OF DI60RDEK. Ti> 

Creator ; injustice is an abuse of the relations 
existino^ between man and man. 

All men are equally God's creatures, equal- 
ly dependent on liis beneficence, and are en- 
titled to an equal share of the blessings he 
bestows upon a fruitful earth. God is no re- 
specter of persons; there is no monopoly of 
blessings. 

The power to breathe and the necessity for 
breathing carry with them the right to nse 
the air which has been placed around the 
globe. The power to feed and the necessity 
for feeding carry with them the right to par- 
take of the productions of nature. And so, 
generally, faculties and necessities carry with 
them the right to their proper nutriment. In 
short, man has a right to fulfil the purposes 
of his existence and to share in the things 
necessary to that fulfilment. 

This is the general law of rights, the moral 
law, the will of God in regard to his creatures. 
The sacredness of these rights comes from 
the sanction of Omniscience. 



76 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

Moralists have summed up the rights of 
men into the right to life and tlie right to 
liberty. Our Declaration adds the right to 
the pursuit of happiness ; but this is em- 
braced in the right to liberty. 

These rights are called inalienable — that is, 
inseparable from human personality ; they 
are the leading characteristics of manhood, 
and whoever restricts them performs an act 
of injustice. 

Our government is founded on the prin- 
ciple of equal and exact justice to all. The 
nation will never be truly prosjDerous until 
this jDrinciple is universally recognized and 
applied. 

There are three recognized causes of just 
alienation of personal rights : viz., 1st, volun- 
tary choice ; 2d, crime ; 3d, the necessities of 
society. 

A man may surrender his liberty or even 
his life, a thing often done with credit in the 
cause of benevolence or patriotism. Where 
this is done, human nature rises to the sub- 



CAUSES OF DISORDER. 77 



lime. Self-abnegation is the true measure of 
size and greatness. Mere intellect may fill a 
space and be intensified in power by wicked- 
ness ; but it is always measurable. It may 
even appear contemptible in its littleness 
when analyzed and laid open in its naked de- 
formity. Only greatness of heart catches at 
the infinite and defies analysis. We cannot 
measure the motive to the act of generous 
self - immolation ; we can only admire the 
flash from the spirit of Eternal Goodness. 
The grave of noble self-sacrifice is the only 
shrine of greatness. It w^ould seem that such 
graves are given us to be our instructors, to 
show the possibilities of human powers. A 
single deed of generous devotion embodies 
more of wisdom, more of instruction, more 
of grandeur, than a cycle of plodding, jostling 
selfishness. Happy the community that has 
such eloquence in its midst. Shame on the 
muse that would prostitute its gift to the un- 
seemly and mercenary task of galvanizing 
little selfishness while the earth's bosom is 



78 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

enriched witli the remains of so many real 
kings ! 

A man may encounter danger or death in 
the assertion of his convictions; but this is 
not surrender. It is rather the exercise of the 
highest hberty, that of liberty of conscience. 
The patient endurance of the martyr ranks 
with the voluntary offering of the hero, in 
that it rises above selfishness. The one dig- 
nifies the human heart, while the other digni- 
fies the human conscience. The one is sub- 
lime in his impulse, the other is sublime in 
his courage and constancy to principle. They 
are both heroes in that they can defy danger 
in order to do what they think is right. But 
there is this distinction between them : tlie 
intellect may be at fault in its cause, the 
heart never. 

A man may with propriety restrict his own 
rights through prudential motives ; but if he 
endangers them through merely selfish mo- 
tives, there is no heroism in the act ; other- 
wise the burglar is a hero. 



CAUSES OF DISORDER. 79 

Criminals forfeit all rights ; and the just 
punishments for crime consist in losses of 
rights proportioned to the nature of the of- 
fence. 

Society is the condition of man's existence. 
lie is born into society. It is only through 
society that he can attain his highest end. It 
is for these reasons that society can justly 
command his services and use his powers, 
though the use may cost him his liberty and 
even his life. Society has the right to com- 
mand its members to act in accordance with 
its necessities. But society has no right to 
be capricious and to invade the rights of in- 
dividuals at will. Society, like individuals, 
finds the origin of its rights in faculties 
and necessities ; and its rights are likewise 
summed up in the general right to attain its 
end. 

With this general view of the nature of 
rights and injustice, we shall proceed to no- 
tice the personal rights at stake in a school. 
There are four persons or factors concerned 



80 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

in a school ; there will, consequently, be four 
classes of personal rights. 

The district has a right — 1st, to the careful 
preservation of the proj^ertv it purchases ; 
2d, to the comfort of an improved public 
sentiment resulting from a well-ordered 
school ; 3d, to the enhanced value of prop- 
erty resulting from the same cause. 

The nature of the first and third rights 
will be apparent to all, and the proj^riety of 
their existence self-evident. 

The second may also be made to appear a 
tangible reality. It in eludes, two things: viz., 
happiness and security. The pursuit of hap- 
piness is one of the great ends of life, and 
every increase of liappiness is gain. That 
moral and intelligent neighbors are a source 
of hapj^iness will be conceded on imagining 
them to be suddenly exchanged for others 
low and vile. 

Insecurity not only detracts from ha23pi- 
ness, and thus robs life of its reward, but it 
also increases expense — the expense of heavy 



CAUSES OF DISORDER. 81 

police cand armies. A people instructed in 
the nature of right and wrong, and in respect 
for authority, are less liable to violate the laws 
and disturb the peace of communities than 
those who are ignorant and vicious ; that is, 
they are self-governing ; and the expensive 
machinery of protection may be reduced or 
dispensed with. 

It is on the supposition that returns are 
made in the forms of happiness and security 
that communities justify the taxation of pri- 
vate property for the support of public 
schools. Hence the community has a right 
to those returns. The right is precisely the 
same in the case of private schools, which 
are supported by voluntary taxation. 
F 



82 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY 



RIGHTS OF PARENTS. 

The parents have a right — 1st, to feel that 
their children are managed with thoughtful 
kindness and care with reference to their 
physical, moral, and mental well-being; 2d, 
to the gratification of beholding the devel- 
oped powers and possibilities of their chil- 
dren ; 3d, to the assurance that their chil- 
dren are prepared for correct and success- 
ful lives. 

The first and third rights embrace the 
scope of parental responsibility. These are 
the things due to the child from the par- 
ent, and the payment of which is intrusted 
to the promptings of affection. Schools are 
devised to enable parents to pay their debts ; 
and the parents have a right to feel that their 
creditors are justified, especially since the cred- 
itors are of their own flesh and blood. 



EIGHTS OF PARENTS. 83 

The second right enil)races the principal 
parental reward. When parents do their 
duty they are entitled to their reward. 
The school should insure that reward, in- 
stead of intercepting it. 



8J: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



BIGHTS OF CHILDREN 

The cliildren have a right — 1st, to find 
their parents' affection in the teacher's 
chair, inspiring their faitli, hope, and perse- 
verance ; 2d, they have a right to sound in- 
struction and correct example; 3d, they have 
a right to that perfect and strong maturity 
that comes of correct training. 

1st. Schools and teachers are artificial 
contrivances ; there are no such existences 
in the natural order of things. Instruction 
is a parental duty. It is founded upon the 
affections, which secure to the parent the 
custody of the child. 

Love considers the welfare of its object ; 
and instruction is essential to the welfare 
of the child. Many circumstances make it 
expedient to procure this instruction through 
schools. Tlie teacher, when such a contri- 



RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. 85 

vaiice is devised, is simply a person in loco 
jyarentis, vested with certain parental rela- 
tions for the dischai-ge of certain parental 
duties. 

We have said that the one imperious 
moral desire of the child is the desire of 
love. The child has a right to that love 
which it craves, and should never be out 
of its atmosphere. It is j^resumed that the 
child is ever v^dthin reach of parental sym- 
pathy and assistance, both at home and at 
school. Its duties to the teacher are like- 
wise the same as those to the parent — viz., 
obedience, resj)ect, and filial love. The mut- 
ual relations remain unchanged. 

2d. The susceptibility to instruction and 
example gives rise to the right to sound in- 
struction and correct example. The child 
is helpless to select wdiolesome physical, 
mental, or moral food ; hence the selection 
is a parental duty. 

Sad, indeed, are the results of failure to 
read the whole meaning of innocent, help- 



86 THE SCHOOL AND THE FA^IILY. 

less, trusting childhood ! Infamous are the 
customs that make traffic of their rights, 
and change them from budding angels into 
incarnate fiends ! 

3d. But towering above all the specific 
rights of childhood, and embracing them 
all in its wide significance, is the grand 
right of maturity — the right to the com- 
plete unfolding of its powers ; the right to 
attain its end ; the right to be a man ; the 
right to read the Creative Mind spjread 
abroad upon his works; the right to the 
infinite pleasures that await ujDon mature 
susceptibilities ; the right to scatter happi- 
ness here — the right to retire in peace from 
a well-employed mortality ! 

This is the meaning of childhood and its 
rights. This is the grand fabric which af- 
fection should build, but which ruthless in- 
justice is everywhere preventing by making 
an early ruin. 



RIGHTS OF TEACHERS. 87 



EIQHTS OF TEACHERS. 

The teacher's contract gives liim no moral 
right. He onlj acquires rights as he gets 
himself into his proper condition. He then 
has a right — 1st, to his pay; 2d, to the obe- 
dience, respect, and love of the children ; 3d, 
to the confidence and support of the par- 
ents and the community. 

1st. "The laborer is worthy of his hire." 
The general conscience of mankind concedes 
to the faithful laborer the right to compen- 
sation for his services. But it is on the 
supposition that the service has been of 
value. Under his contract the incompetent 
teacher may draw pay, but the transaction is 
legalized fraud. From a moral standpoint 
it is viewed as the jDlunder of a sacred fund. 

2cl. Only when the teacher shows parental 
spirit is he morally entitled to the duties of 



88 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

childhood. He may have extravagant no- 
tions of his authority, but tliat authority is 
none other than the parental authority of 
custody intrusted to the affections. Many 
teachere act on the principle that might 
makes right, and emj)loy physical force as 
the sine qua non of discipline. Such teach- 
ers have no right to tlie duties of tlie child. 

If the teacher is not in his proper condi- 
tion, his very presence is a moral wrong — the 
efficient cause, in fact, of the endless wrongs 
and miseries which work the ruin of order 
in schools. 

A violation of any of the rights men- 
tioned works injustice. It is incumbent 
upon the argument to show that this in- 
justice works disorder in school. 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 

Let, for instance, the property be contin- 
ually damaged and destroyed. This is an 
injustice, inasmnch as it violates the first 
right of the district. It will immediately 
react npon one of the conditions of order — 
viz., willingness to contribute freely to the 
necessary expenses of the school. 

Dilapidation is not always due to penu- 
rionsness. It may be evidence of a dis- 
couraged district that has witnessed wanton 
waste and destruction. It becomes an ap- 
parently useless task to make imj^rovements, 
if improvements are only to whet the ap- 
petite of vandalism ; so dilapidation is per- 
mitted to have its course. Good dwellings, 
fences, barns, and churches go up, while 
the school-house goes down. It is not un- 
common to see very shabby school - houses 



90 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

in very enterprising and well-to-do commu- 
nities. It would be wrong to infer penuri- 
ousness or want of public spirit in a people 
who are unwilling to submit to injustice. 

Dilapidation is destructive of order ; in- 
justice may liave caused the dilapidation ; 
and the teacher is resjDonsible for the in- 
justice. It is the function of discipline to 
get the school in order; and children who 
are in order will not destroy property. 

The community which some might call 
stingy has suffered other injustice besides 
waste of school property — it has suffered 
the loss of teachers' salaries. The returns 
to which it was entitled, in the forms of 
happiness, security, and enhanced value of 
property, have not been forthcoming, but 
rather their opposite evils. Unwillingness 
to be taxed under ^such circumstances is 
natural. 

Unkind and violent treatment is an in- 
justice, since it violates several rights. It 
violates the first right of the children and 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 91 

the lirst right of the parents. It affects all 
the children's conditions of order and also 
the third condition of the parents. Chil- 
dren cannot be happy under unkind and 
violent treatment, they cannot respect and 
love a harsh teacher, nor can they feel an 
interest in a school that is suggestive of 
torture. They may give partial obedience, 
but it is not given to discipline — it is given 
to their own physical fear, which for the 
moment becomes the superior motive. The 
inclination to disobedience is increased. 

Loose conduct in the teacher is an in- 
justice. It violates the second right of the 
children, the first right of the parents, and 
the second right of the district. Loose con- 
duct includes everything that is not honor- 
able, manly, and noble in daily walk ^ and 
conversation. It includes every phase of 
grossness and impropriety. ^ 

If this appears exacting, it is true, then, 
that teaching is a very exacting profession. 
He who regards good conduct as a strait- 



92 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

jacket would do well to omit teaching. The 
teacher should be everywhere the ralljiiig- 
point for propriety, which is the essence of 
order. We do not use the term proj^riety in 
the sense of stilted formality. Naturalness 
is the most pleasing of all things; and the 
conduct which springs from a pure heart 
and reasonable seriousness of purpose will 
constitute a wdiolesome example for the 
children. Manners will take their com- 
plexion from the heart. A man who is free 
from gross intentions will not indulge in 
gross deportment. Delicacy is inseparable 
from goodness — it is to a degree inborn in 
all human beings. We should aim to culti- 
vate a natural grace rather than teach how 
to talk, walk, and behave by rule Mere 
book - behavior is a heartless thing ; it is 
often cultivated at the expense of soul, and 
destroys that frank and open candor which 
is the mark of true manliness. 

A knowledge of the conventionalities of 
societ}^ is useful in putting a man at ease in 



KEACTioN OF injusticp:. 93 

different situations. But those convention- 
alities are no test of conduct. A man may 
be ignorant of them, and yet liv^e without 
reproach. 

It is a mistaken supposition tliat good con- 
duct interferes with pleasure. The teacher 
should be supremely happy, and should take 
all the relaxation and recreation necessary 
to make him so. In fact, he is not master 
of himself unless the red blood of health 
mantles in his cheek, and the light of a 
buoyant spirit sparkles in his eye. lie 
should never cast a shadow, but should ever 
carry with him the warmth of a genial nat- 
ure. He must unbend at times, or he ^Y\\\ 
become permanently rigid. While providing 
for his own relaxations, he should encourage 
the relaxations of others, and so contribute 
to the general happiness. In holding that 
he should be the rallying-point of propriety, 
we do not mean that he should appear as 
an iceberg to put out the lires of enjoy- 
ment. 



94: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

The liypoclionclriac is out of place in the 
school-room. The teacher would do well to 
consult his glass, and when he sees the 
pallor attacking his cheeks and heaviness 
seizing upon his eyes, surrender his school 
and betake himself to the mountains. He 
has had all the needed evidence that he is 
no longer lit to govern. An act or trait 
good in itself may be pushed to excess. A 
few teachers are what may be called om- 
nivorous students. They oscillate between 
the study and the school-room, keejDing their 
mental powers under continual strain. The 
result is general exhaustion, a shattered ner- 
vous system, and total unfitness to govern. 

But while good conduct does not pre- 
clude pleasure, it does preclude rude man- 
ners and the offensive habits resulting from 
low instincts. 

Loose conduct, like every other injustice, 
reacts upon the conditions of order. It 
shakes the respect of the children for the 
moral suj)eriority of the teacher; it dimin- 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 95 

islies the confidence of the parents, affects 
the TvilKngness of the district, and lowers 
the tone of public sentiment, making in the 
aggregate such an onslaught upon order as 
no other qualities can counteract. 

Ignorance and intellectual idleness in the 
teacher are rank injustice to the children, 
the parents, and the district. They violate 
every right of all the other factors by mak- 
ing the school a sham and a pretence. The 
mind that is not open for the recej)tion of 
instruction is not the tit vehicle for impart- 
ing it. The child is "the heir of all the 
ages in the foremost files of time," and the 
opaque teacher steps between him and his 
birthright. The teacher, who should trans- 
mit the inheritance, makes the inheritance 
an impossibility. 

K^atm-e, with her thousand voices, is wait- 
ing to instruct the recipient teacher, offer- 
ing him free lectures, free text-books, free 
cabinet, and free apparatus. The scientists, 
the poets, the historians of thirty centuries. 



96 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

are ready to pour out to him the wealth of 
their discoveries; and yet with sublime com- 
posure he ignores all these avenues of wis- 
dom, and assumes to keep school on a knack 
which he has picked up from the external 
manifestations of others. The farce would 
be ludicrous were it not for its ghastly con- 
sequences. 

But our immediate point is the reaction 
of ignorance upon order. It reacts upon 
happiness, respect, confidence, and willing- 
ness. The very conscientiousness of an ig- 
norant teacher makes him only the greater 
infliction on the school. Starting with 
wrong methods, the more he pushes tliem, 
the niore damage he does. Confusion be- 
comes worse confounded, until recovery is 
almost ho23eless. It would be a good thing 
for the cause of education, the welfare of 
the country, and the pockets of taxpayers 
if people could realize how much better no 
school at all is than such a school. 

Dulness of apprehension of relations in 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 97 

the teacher is an injustice. It vioLites the 
third right of the children. The teacher 
may be thoroughly upright and well-be- 
liaved, he may be scholarly and studious ; 
but if he is wanting in apprehension, he will 
inflict, though unintentionally, the greatest 
injustice, and seriously disturb order. 

He will be apt to reprimand and even 
punish the children for disorder caused by 
discomfort. This disorder, instead of being 
a delinquency, is a signal from E'ature that 
the conditions of health and happiness are 
wanting. The wise teacher rejoices in the 
signal, and promptly obeys its behests. It 
may apprise him that the air is foul, and 
that the children are in danger of being 
poisoned. It may apprise him that the 
children are suffering from cold, perhaps sit- 
ting in damp garments, thus having their 
health dangerously exposed. It may apprise 
him that the seats and desks are so con- 
structed as to cause present discomfort and 
permanent injury to the bodily frame. It 
G 



98 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

may apprise him that the light is not prop- 
erly distributed, and that the cause of the 
children's discomfort threatens danger to 
their eyesight. Many graves and many bro- 
ken and deformed bodies are the ^vork of 
the kindest, best -behaved, and, it may also 
be said, of the most scholarly and studious 
teachers. 

Apprehension of relations will enable the 
teacher to administer correction with dis- 
crimination, and prevent him from fixing 
responsibility where it does not belong. 

Apprehension will inf onn the teacher when 
the mental strain is sufficient, and when the 
young brain needs rest and relaxation ; oth- 
erwise, with the kindest of motives, he may 
murder the child, and be a too successful 
instnictor. 

It is clear that want of apprehension of 
relations causes great injustice, suffering, 
and injury. But it reacts upon order by 
diminishing happiness and by diminishing 
tlie teacher's outside influence ; it interferes 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 99 

with tlie pointed missionary work which is 
part of the task of diseipb'ne. 

In hke manner, every conceivable act of 
injustice reacts somewhere upon the condi- 
tions of order. It is well that it is so; it 
is Nature's voice proclaiming against injus- 
tice. 

The function of discipline, then, is to ad- 
minister justice. When complete justice is 
done, there will be order. The teacher 
should be competent to clearly define the 
rights of all the parties at issue, and ulti- 
mately to secure those rights to their pos- 
sessors in their fullest exercise. If he pro- 
ceeds from any other standpoint of action, 
he will fail to get his school in order. If 
he trusts to mechanical imitation of the ex- 
ternal methods of others, or to the dictates 
of sudden impulse, he will fail. He can only 
succeed by being absolutely just. 

But rights and their reasons are only part 
of the moral law. We rise to a full concep- 
tion of the great ethical system which the 



100 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

Creator has instituted for the moral gov- 
ernment of his creatures only when we 
grasp the idea of reciprocity. Giving in re- 
turn for receiving is the law. Every right 
involves the obligation of payment. This 
payment is called duty. Every moral gov- 
ernor should be clear not only in the nature 
of rights, but also in that of their corre- 
sponding duties. Until the sense of obli- 
gation is aroused in the governed, the gov- 
ernment will not be successful. 

We have said before that perfect order 
results from the immediate influence of an 
enlightened conscience. Conscience is a 
lively sense of duty — the internal court 
which sits in judo-ment upon our conduct 
and motives, enforcing its mandates with the 
terrors of retribution. The law of retribu- 
tion is one of the earliest learned by the 
child. In its infant ignorance it violates 
natural law, and pain and suffering are the 
consequences. "A. burned child dreads the 
fire." The caution resulting from experi- 



RE ACTION OF INJUSTICE. 101 

ence of pain is but the physical conscience. 
The sanctions of moral conscience are also, 
in a sense, cantion against suffering — the 
moral suffering of remorse as well as the 
pliYsical suffering incurred by moral delin- 
quency. 

Discipline cannot overlook the uses of suf- 
fering — it is one of the important mediate 
forces employed before conscience assumes 
the ascendency and renders it unnecessary. 
But the correct employment of suffering in 
discipline is one of its most delicate prob- 
lems. It requires the clearest conviction 
that suffering is the proper force required 
in the case. Then occur the important 
questions of the character and amount of 
suffering fitted to have the desired effect. 
The line is delicately marked, on one side 
of which suffering serves as an educator to 
conscience, and on the other side of which 
it proves a destroyer of order. In this deli- 
cate case the good disciplinarian will choose 
to err on the side of mercy. 



102 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

Teachers who are not in order often abuse 
the force of suffering bj inflicting nnjnst and 
brutal punishments. Boards of education in 
some places have found it necessary to pro- 
tect the children from unjust violence. They 
have, however, taken the wrong course; in- 
stead of dismissing the disorderly teachers, 
they have dismissed corporal punishment, 
which is equivalent to dismissing discipline 
and accepting disorder. The act is an admis- 
sion that the children's rights are in danger. 
The proper protection would be to remove 
those persons who endanger these rights, and 
not to try to remodel the Creator's laws. Ret- 
ribution is inseparable from evil-doing. It 
cannot be abolished at the option of a gener- 
ous school-board; its operation can only be 
delayed, to fall, at last, with more telling 
and crushing force. 

The duty involved in a vested right em- 
braces — 1st, a recognition of the possession ; 
2d, gratitude to the giver; 3d, humble and 
loving submission to the will of benevolent 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 103 

superiority. Obedience is founded in faith ; 
and faith is the fruit of evidence of kindly 
ability. Sulfering will have its best effects 
after the children have acquired faith in the 
good intentions of the teacher. Instead of re- 
sentino- what under other circumstances would 
appear unjust pain, they are tilled with lively 
remorse for the misdeed which caused it. 

Discipline consists in instruction in duty; 
and to this end all mediate forces will be sub- 
ordinated. Duty means but one thing ; it is 
a scientific reality, accessible to all who seek 
after its nature. It is the highest form of 
knowledge, as it is the most useful form of 
knowledge ; it is the key to individual hap- 
piness and to the happiness of mankind in 
their necessary social relations. 

The discipline of a school should not be 
intrusted to any one who is not master of 
this important branch of knowledge, because 
everything is involved in it. If duty be made 
the first subject submitted to candidates for 
admission to the profession of teaching, our 



104 THE SCHOOL AND THE FA:\nLT. 

schools will be measurably protected from dis- 
order. We have trusted to tact, to our sor- 
row ; it is time to insist upon knowledge. 

Some men claim to govern by inspiration ; 
tliey liave within them an indescribable some- 
thing which they call executive ability, and 
which carries them at once to the root of 
each problem that arises in daily experience. 
Such men scorn to be interrogated upon the 
particular details of duty ; they are not given 
to analysis; they know a delinquency by in- 
tuition ; and by intuition they suppress it, 
and make themselves masters of the situation. 
If it is time that these men dive with unerr- 
ing instinct to the roots of every problem in 
school discipline, we can see how a great fi- 
nancial gain would be effected by getting a 
few of them to go to Washington and run 
the nation by inspiration. 

But we must confess our scepticism as to 
this whole subject of executive ability, as com- 
monly understood. Wliile we believe that cer- 
tain men are born with an itchins; to com- 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 105 

niaiul, vet we do not believe that they will 
coinmaiul well until they know how. We 
would be inclined to discourage a candidate 
who offered no assurance of his iitness to 
govern but a breastful of faith driven by a 
forty -horse power of determination. From 
our ignorance of the secret springs of execu- 
tive ability, we would have to regard him as. an 
enthusiastic Juggernaut, and keep our children 
out of his way. We would want a man to be 
in order, and be able to demonstrate it under 
a critical examination. We regard our chil- 
dren as subjects of instruction, not subjects 
of experiment ; and those who would instruct 
must know what they would teach. 

We see that the duties of childhood are all 
associated with its rights. When its last and 
greatest right, maturity, is vested, its duties are 
not absolved, but increased in number and 
character. The parent still retains the right to 
the child's duty, though he loses the custody 
of his person. But with the loss of the right 
of custody there occur new classes of rights. 



106 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

The burden of duties performed and ad- 
vancing years are making inroads upon pa- 
rental vigor ; nature is beginning to call back 
that vitality which has served its purpose; 
the weak, dependent child has become the 
powerful, aggressive man ; there seems to 
have occurred a transfer of strength, a re- 
versal of relations. 

N^ow, the parent has a right to lean upon 
the strong tower which his own exhaustive 
struggles have reared : as he descends through 
the stages of weakness and decay to the grave, 
he is entitled to a return of that sympathy 
which his ow^n warm, manly heart bestowed 
upon childhood's tribulations. The chivalry 
w^itli which a dutiful child, after maturity, 
rushes to the support and comfort of its 
parents' declining years has its exact counter- 
part in that other chivalry with which a true- 
hearted man rushes to the rescue of his coun- 
try. Patriotism is not an unexplained phe- 
nomenon; it is conscieDce, sense of duty to 
that other parent, the state, which has nur- 



REACTION OF INJUSTICE. 107 

tured its helpless infancy with the benefi- 
cence of its laws. 

But what shall we say of the parent by 
proxy, the teacher ? Is there no debt of grat- 
itude, support, and sympathy due to him in 
his extremity? Is there no dereliction of 
duty anywhere when he is cast aside, like a 
worn-out horse, after his usefulness in the 
school-room is ended ? Most assuredly there 
is. The child whom he has led by the hand 
to man's estate is in an important sense his 
child. His weakness should call forth filial 
sympathy; he should share in the strength 
which he has imparted to his pupils. The 
state also owes him a debt of substantial 
gratitude for the strong pillars of citizen- 
ship which he has added to its structure. 

The correct and faithful disciplinarian 
should have no occasion to fear the approach 
of age. Discipline will suffer an irremedi- 
able loss if he is obliged to betake his pow- 
ers into other employments in order to se- 
cure a competency for his declining years. 



lOS THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

In return for his useful labors society owes 
him sympathy and comfort. It has not with- 
in its borders more venerable or sacred monu- 
ments than those persons who have given the 
strength of their maturity to tlie discipline 
of schools. The moral hero w^ho has fought 
and won the great battle of discipline should 
sink to rest amid tlie benisons of his coun- 
try, and the tear of affectionate remembrance 
should fall above his well-marked grave. 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 109 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 

We have discussed the general law of dis- 
cipline. There are phases of its operation to 
be noticed before closing. 

We have in this country systems of school 
supervision. Their nature and functions 
should be thoroughly understood by all in- 
quirers into the philosophy of school disci- 
pline. The schools of a city, town, county, 
or state are placed under the direction of an 
official head called a superiiitendent. This 
individual is supposed to be a person of su- 
perior wisdom and experience, who can judge 
of the wants of the schools, and who can by 
his counsel and authority enforce improve- 
ment. The conception of supervision is a 
wise one ; for it enables a person of superior 
disciplinary powers to extend his usefulness 



110 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

over a wider field without detriment to 
order. 

Supervision simply creates a larger school ; 
but it does not alter the character of its fac- 
tors or their relations. The superintendent 
is still the teacher ; and he is morally respon- 
sible for the discipline of all the schools un- 
der his charge. Having pronounced him a 
teacher, it is sufficient to say in regard to his 
duties and relations that they have been dis- 
cussed already under their proper heads. But 
there is this peculiarity about his functions : 
he can multiply his personality so as to be 
proj)erly represented in places where he is 
unable to be in person. The theory is an 
excellent one, that discipline should not be 
at the mercy of circumstances, but rather un- 
der the control of superior experience. 

Supervision, then, is the source, the foun- 
tain-head, of wide-spread disciplinary activity. 
Poison the source and you pollute the entire 
stream. When supervision proves false to its 
trust, the pall of death settles down upon the 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. Ill 

discipline of its field. It could not be other- 
wise ; when the guardian sells out his charge 
for a price, that charge must languish. We 
have called discipline moral heroism : the his- 
tory of supervision in this country has been 
too largely a history of moral cowardice, if 
not moral perversion. 

This is due to the system of getting super- 
vision rather than to the wilful perversity of 
men. If the aim had been to deprive the su- 
j)erintendent of his conscience and make the 
schools a laughing-stock, a more ingenious 
system than ours could not have been devised 
to that end. The prime cause of the failure 
of our supervision was the original blunder 
of connecting it with politics. A little re- 
flection might have foreseen the evil fruits 
of such, a plan. Our early educational legis- 
lators were doubtless blinded by the force of 
analogy, and by misconception of the scope of 
the doctrine of local self-government and the. 
sovereign rights of the people. Our laws de- 
cided that a superintendent of schools should 



112 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

be chosen for certain areas bj tlie ballots of 
the legal voters. 

This system, intended donbtless to conserve 
the rights of the people, was fitted in its nat- 
ure to trample down every sacred right of 
community as well as of individuals. It will 
be conceded that whatever affects the wel- 
fare of the children affects the welfare of 
the community, for they are the constantly 
on-coming community. Xow, it is a fact 
well established in political exj^erience that 
the existence of a political office creates a 
horde of office-seekers who are willing to 
hold any office under the sun. There can 
be no doubt that if medical practice and the 
ministry of the Gospel were made the func- 
tions of politically elected incumbents, these 
gentlemen would all run for the office of doc- 
tor or clergyman. Professional office-seekers 
are persons of ubiquitous volition, and are 
.serenely indifferent as to the prov^ince in 
which their valuable services are employed, 
providing it lias emoluments. 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 113 

Now, the eiiect of making supervision po- 
litical lias been to make the entire system of 
schools under its charge j)olitical. Questions 
of ctHciency have been entirely superseded 
by questions of patronage, until the great 
aggregation of American free schools has 
become one grand system of spoils. The 
politically elected superintendent is not per- 
mitted to select his teachers, even if he 
chances to be competent to discharge such a 
weighty task. Where the law makes a Her- 
bert Spencer ineligible, and gives the office 
to the party who can best manage the com- 
binations of a caucus and a political cam- 
paign, the chances are not in favor of brill- 
iant professional ability. But, be that as it 
may, he is immediately beset by candidates 
for teaching who are more anxious to ex- 
hibit their " claims " than their qualifications. 
These claims are in the shape of '■' influence " 
which has either contributed to his election or 
is capable of punishing him should he ever 
again be a candidate for public favor. Ilav- 
II 



114 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

ing secured his office, lie is considered very 
ungrateful if lie prevents other peoj)le from 
getting their offices. 

In this rush for place it is not to be sup- 
posed that the public is frenzied with zeal to 
instruct the rising youth ; it is frenzied with 
zeal to fill the offices and draw the salaries. 
It is a chase to see who shall have the privi- 
lege of spoiling the children. The air re- 
sounds with clamor for patronage, while the 
poor children, whose rights are thus bartered, 
are dumb. 

Political men with a long line of political 
aspirations like to be " popular." It is jdos- 
sible to be in politics and at the same time 
be both popular and honest; but not in tlie 
office of superintendent of schools, elected 
by the people. The honest superintendent 
will tell some candidates that they are not 
qualified to do good work as teachers. The 
disappointed candidates and their relatives 
and friends take umbrage at a man who will 
not perjure himself in order to accommo- 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 115 

date tliem. Many such eases make large in- 
roads upon his popularity. Of course, these 
good people do not want the superintendent 
to perjure himself ; but they do want him to 
certify to their qualifications, whether he can 
find them or not. 

The superintendent sees that he does his 
duty at his peril ; the disaffected control his 
daily bread; he has but one chance in con- 
nection with duty, and that is for a glorions 
martyrdom. But a man who fights a hard 
political campaign in order to get this office 
is not quite ready for martyrdom; he gen- 
erally has a few other projects on the tapis 
with which martyrdom would seriously in- 
terfere. 

Where no awkward scruples stand in the 
way, his course is clear : give the people w^hat 
they want, and be popular. ]^o one demands 
duty, but crowds are demanding certificates. 
It is possible that the incumbent never was 
troubled with any scruples, or, if he was, that 
he lost them in the campaign which carried 



116 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAJ^IILY. 

him into office. In that case he can scatter 
certificates as thick as the autumn leaves, and 
yet sleep as soundly as a new-born babe. 

This is all very well as a burlesque ; but it 
is a sad commentary on the condition of edu- 
cation in this country that such things are 
possible. We have many brave superintend- 
ents who are trying to protect their schools 
against the tide of political pressure ; but 
they are groaning in anguish under the 
strain. 

We find, in the nature of things, that the 
power of discipline is the power of con- 
science. If conscience is eliminated, we have 
Samson shorn of his locks; we have size and 
form minus power. Schools are perverted 
from their pui-poses when they become mat- 
ters of business, patronage, and emoluments. 
Political schools suggest no other idea than 
that of plunder, the basest of plunder, since 
it fattens upon the rights of childhood and 
the interests of society. Under political 
supervision there is great energy expended ; 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 117 

but it is not expended towards building up 
strong and virtuous citizenship ; it is expend- 
ed towards capturing the school funds. 

Free schools were established in this coun- 
try for the purpose of preserving self-govern- 
ment by training up intelligent patriotism. 
Under political supervision, instead of breed- 
ing patriots they have been breeding vam- 
pires ; they have flooded the country with 
physical, mental, and moral wrecks. Still we 
have good people in the country, or we should 
have immediate disintegration. Fortunately 
the maturity of our children is not altogether 
at the mercy of political schools. We have 
other moral forces which tend to save many 
of them from the corrupting influence of 
vicious discipline. 

Family discipline is still fighting against 
the tide ; and many fortunate children get 
their dominant moral characteristics at home. 
The churches are everywhere wielding a 
mighty power in the moral education of the 
race ; and organized societj^, public opinion, 



118 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

constrains many men to lionor. So if good 
people come up out of political schools, it 
may be inferred that they do so in spite 
of the schools, and not by reason of them. 
But we have other conserving forces which 
need to be noticed. Political supervision, 
though altogether too general, is fortunately 
not universal. AYe have superintendents who 
are appointed by competent bodies of men 
who are responsible to their constituents for 
the faithful discharge of their trust. The ad- 
vantages of this system are ob\'ious. Re- 
sponsibility makes men cautious in selecting ; 
and the probabilities are altogether in favor 
of securing a competent incumbent. In se- 
lecting by universal ballot, responsibility at- 
taches nowhere ; and the force of caution is 
altogether lost. The appointed superintend- 
ent finds himself measurably at liberty to at- 
tend to school questions rather than to polit- 
ical ones. lie can face successive elections 
with comparative composure, feeling that he 
has demonstrated his usefulness, and that the 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 119 

better judgment of tlie appointive body will 
sustain liim. 

Eepresentative deliberative bodies are con- 
strained to be judicial in their decisions ; so 
discipline is measurably protected. "We use 
the term ^' measurably " because absolute pro- 
tection does not lie in expedients ; selfishness 
has been found capable of penetrating to a 
degree the strongest special safeguards yet 
devised. Absolute protection lies only in a 
sensitive popular conscience. But the fruits 
of appointive supervision have been sufficient- 
ly gratifying, on the whole, to create hopes of 
the success of public education. Schools un- 
der appointive supervision have made great 
advance towards order, and to that extent 
have proved a beneficent force in the coun- 
try. Suj)ervision is reasonably untrammelled 
when it dares to inaugurate principles of ac- 
tion ; and this is what our appointed superin- 
tendents, as a body, have done. Principles 
bear fruits of faith and obedience. In some 
communities the will of a judicious super- 



120 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAJ^IILY. 

intendent has become already almost abso- 
lute. 

While considering the conserving forces 
which have saved us from the complete con- 
sequences of our educational blunders, it 
would be unjust to omit mention of the 
private schools which prevail so extensively 
throughout the land. These institutions, to- 
tally dissevered from politics, and relying 
upon efficiency for recognition and support, 
have done a great good work for the coun- 
try in the way of building up scholarship and 
character. 

But the free school is the boon of American 
childhood and the bulwark of American na- 
tionality. It should therefore be the aim of 
the philanthropist and statesman to make it 
efficient. Efficiency lies, 1st, in having right 
views of discipline ; 2d, in having a correct 
"system of organization. 

We have considered political supervision, 
under which King Caucus manij)nlates his 
patronage, perverting the schools from their 



SPECIAL PHASES OF DISCIPLINE. 121 

proper j^urposes to sellisli uses. There is 
another injurious phase of supervision to be 
noticed. It is injurious in a negative rather 
than in a positive sense. We refer to what 
we may call nominal, or rather restricted 
supervision. Under this form the superin- 
tendent is assigned a limited list of duties, 
beyond the discharge of which his official con- 
nection with the schools ceases. This places 
the superintendent in an anomalous position. 
It is a form of edncational paralysis. It is 
the creation of a vigorous head, suj)plied with 
sensor but not with motor nerves. This head 
becomes cognizant of things which should be 
done ; it has the will, but not the power, to 
act. 

If we hold the teacher responsible for the 
discipline of his school, he should certainly 
have ample liberty in managing the details of 
the school. It is wrong to hold a superin- 
tendent responsible for evils which he is for- 
bidden to check. We have areas of nominal 
supervision within which there are other areas 



122 THE SCHOOL AKD THE FAMILY. 

of political supervision, constituting states 
within a state, and tlioronglily untrammelled 
in their license. Supervision is defeated of 
its purpose unless it has the power of exact- 
ing reasonable uniformit}^ and unquestioned 
efficiency. 



CONCLUSION. 123 



CONCLUSIOK 

AVe have completed an examination of the 
theory of discipline, and have endeavored to 
trace its law. With whatever of streno'th or 
weakness this has been done is a question 
for the reader to decide. We shall be glad 
if some deo-ree of truth is recoo^nized in the 
propositions laid down ; wherein we are in 
error we shall as gladly stand corrected when 
the error is made known to us. It is alto- 
gether improbable that a single individual 
may escape error in pursuing such an intri- 
cate subject ; but if the method herein em- 
ployed prove suggestive to other explorers, 
this labor has not been expended in vain. 

The great need is for more general think- 
ing in discipline as a subject ; and we be- 
lieve this end will be hastened by formu- 
lating into a science the truths discovered 



124 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

and demonstrated bj experience. Experience 
palls on those who are destitute of method. 
We would institute a method of progress. 

We have been compelled to say severe 
things, but have endeavored to be just. No 
one has less reason than ourselves to speak 
slightingly of the existing institutions of our 
country. We would be glad to be spared the 
office of censor, and so devote ourselves to 
the more pleasant duties of j^hilosophy and 
eulogy ; but we know it would be wrong to 
cloak the evils which every candid observer 
must admit. The present demands earnest- 
ness and sincerity. It would be severe, but 
true, to say that during the century, instead 
of building up a system of education, we 
have only called into existence a vast aggre- 
gation of educational symbols. Why ? Be- 
cause we have given the building over to 
novices and charlatans, and have driven away 
the constructive brain and the skilful hand. 
A nation's vitality may stand such a strain 
for a time ; but there always is a point at 



CONCLUSION. 125 



which the accumulation of evils produces a 
crash. When we rise to criticism, we rise 
to make a case in behalf of the children, in 
behalf of a national citizenship, and in be- 
half of mankind ao'ainst a dishonest and de- 
structive empiricism. 

Our reasonings have led us to the conclu- 
sion that our teachers should be wise. We 
want absolute evidence of that wisdom be- 
fore they be permitted to touch the delicate 
structure of a child's mental and moral nat- 
ure. An artificer should be acquainted with 
his materials, and should have clear notions 
of the product he would bring forth. Is it 
more important to construct a house or a 
railroad than to build a man ? And yet how 
cautious people are to intrust the former 
tasks only to competent talent ! Of all the 
improvements that can be introduced into a 
country, the most powerful and useful are 
improved people. He is the highest bene- 
factor who gives to his country the services 
of a fully equipped man. We want a guild 



126 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

of thought and soul builders, who will take 
the raw materials of a child's possibilities 
and fashion them into the fabric of a strong 
and symmetrical maturity. 

But these are truisms. The specific point 
is that the teacher should be familiar with 
natural philosophy, human physiology, men- 
tal and moral science, as a condition of dis- 
cipline. He should likewise be enthusiastic 
in his calling, and not gauge his labors by his 
pay. If he has the heart of a true teacher, 
he will be inspired by but one motive, and 
that is the advancement of his pupil. How 
these qualifications may be secured and as- 
sured we shall discuss under the head of 
Practical School Ethics. 



TABULAR ANALYSIS. 



127 



TABULAR ANALYSIS. 



Definition. 



Definition. 



Parties in a 
School, 



Conditions of 
Order. 



Deduction. 
Deduction. 
Deduction. 



Discipline (government). That power of 
control which produces and sustains 
order. 

Order. Fitness of condition in things. 

1. District, 

2. Parents, 

3. Children. 

4. Teaclier. 



1. District. 



rl. Ability to support. 

J 2. Willingness to support. 



2. Parents. 



3. Healthy public senti- 
ment, 

1, Appreciation of knowl- 
edge. 

2, Wisdom in family man- 
agement, 

3, Proper affection towards 
school. 

1. Happiness. 
Children. -{ 2. Respect for superiors. 
3. Interest in school, 
rl. Self-mastery. 
4. Teacher. \ 2, Sound scholarship. 

1 3. Correct apprehension. 

The power of discipline is a moral power. 

Discipline is a remedial system. 

Moral order is the undisturbed exercise 
of rights and the complete discharge 
of duties — the reign of justice. 



128 



THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



Causes of Dis- 
order. 

Definition. 



C 1. Natural deformity. 
-j 2. Neglect. 
1 3. Reaction of injustice. 

Injustice. 



Personal Rights. 



fl. Parents. 



2. District. 



Children. 



4. Teacher 
(condition- 
al). 



Violation of personal rights. 

1. Teacher's kindness and 
care. 

3. To enjoy the develop- 
ment of the children. 

3. To be assured of their 
children's success. 

1. Preservation of prop- 
erty. 

2. Improved public senti- 
ment. 

3. Enhanced value of prop- 
erty. 

1. Parental kindness and 
care. 

2. Sound instruction and 
correct example. 

. 3. Maturity. 

1. Pay. 

2. Respect, obedience, and 
filial love. 

Confidence and co-op- 
eration. 
Deduction. Rights and duties are correlates. 

((involved] 1. Recognition of the possession. 
Duties-! in a vest- 1 2. Gratitude to the giver. 

led right). J 3. Submission to benevolent superiorit)'. 

Deduction. The production of order is the education 

of conscience. 

Deduction. The education of conscience involves the 

employment of mediate forces. A me- 
diate force is a special restraint upon a 
diseased will, and is discontinued iis 
conscience assumes control of the will. 



TABULAR ANALYSIS. 



129 



POSTUXATE. 



Deduction. 



Postulate. 



Deduction. 



Causes of 
Insubordination. 

Deduction. 



Retribution is the inseparable consequent 
of violated law. 

The education of conscience involves ex- 
perience of retribution ; hence disci- 
pline employs suffering as a mediate 
force. 

Retribution is the complement of aspira- 
tion ; it is the compulsion of nature to 
right living — that is, to the diligent ex- 
ercise of the various human faculties. 

Subordination to justly constituted au- 
thorities is a natural state of man. 

1. Conflict of authority. 
3. Abuse " " 

3. Abdication of " 

Selfishness is subversive of discipline ; 
intuition is inadequate to its delicate 
decisions ; actual knowledge of natural 
law is the essential condition of the ad- 
ministration of discipline. 



130 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 

UNDEK-tliis head we open a department for 
the unlimited discussion of practical school 
problems. It should be the exemplification 
of the science of school discipline ; and it can 
be made the test of any system assuming sci- 
entific completeness. Practical ethics will be 
established on a proper basis only after we 
have an authentic and accepted science of dis- 
cipline. It ought, then, to give us an excep- 
tionally rich educational literature, coming up 
from the practical workers in their varied 
fields of experience. But all contributions to 
practical ethics should be to the point ; they 
should either enrich our science (after we get 
it) or illustrate it. We should conserve dis- 
cussion to really new thoughts (the science 
will take care of the old ones). By so doing 
all educational thinkers may feed on real dis- 



TRACTICxVL SCHOOL ETHICS. 131 

coveries, and keep together in the line of edu- 
cational progress. We have no time to listen 
to vaporing ; nor have we time to listen to an 
individual's experience unless he is quite sure 
that it is not the common experience of the 
profession. Of all weariness, the most excru- 
ciating is that resulting from listening to the 
labored presentation of an oft-told tale. 

A profession is not built up by rhetoric, 
by plodding empiricism, nor by dogmatic as- 
sertion ; it is built np only by careful toil 
within prescribed limits. The professional 
talk which embodies only what has been well 
said before is a double infliction, because, in 
addition to disgusting the auditors, it also 
takes time from progress. 

The most general educational problem of 
the hour is that of providing a citizenship 
fitted to enjoy the institutions of free govern- 
ment, and fitted to develop the boundless re- 
sources of the American domain. To do this, 
education has not only to train up American 
childhood to fitness for its royal prerogatives, 



132 THE SCHOOL AIN'D THE FAMILY. 

but it has also to assimilate into stnrdv citi- 
zenship the heterogeneous elements pouring 
in upon us from all quarters of tlie globe ; it 
has the task of making patriots out of stran- 
gers. It has the task of uprooting habits of 
thought fastened by older civilizations, and of 
giving free and universal scope to the Amer- 
ican idea. 

This American idea contemplates a brother- 
hood of citizens having common political aspi- 
rations undisturbed bj phases of private opin- 
ion and belief. It means the enthronement 
of order, freedom, and progress. It means to 
show that mankind can attain its majority and 
dispense with the paternal nursings that have 
been practised upon its infancy. It means 
the creation of a public opinion powerful 
enough to crush all fraud and political heresy 
here, and capable of instructing other nations 
in the pathways of political freedom and 
progress. The American idea is generous in 
its intentions and broad in its j^iirposes. 
Whether it shall be permitted to pass into 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 133 

history as a mere fanciful conception or as a 
powerful reality is the problem of American 
education. 

It has certainly suffered hitherto; the many 
triumphs of selfishness have put us sadly out 
of countenance. But if we begin in earnest 
now, we still have the resources of victory. 
Nothing but a strong-handed education will 
save the American idea, and with it the 
intended career of the American republic. 
We must rescue our schools from the char- 
latanry and selfishness which have over- 
whelmed them, and restore them to their 
original purpose of nourishing healthful 
brain and soul for the nation. Nations have 
been crushed by superior force, and have 
disappeared in glory ; but the most pain- 
ful lessons of history are those of national 
suicide. Our example would be the most 
doleful of all, because we have had the best 
opportunities and the best possessions to 
throw away. 

This strong-handed education calls for or- 



134 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FA^IILT. 

ganizers, for leaders. Such talent is in the 
country ; a portion of the organizing skill 
expended in selfish or even wicked projects 
would give us a capital educational system. 
Men of genius enter our ranks from time to 
time ; but, finding no field for their abilities, 
they soon abandon us to our charlatanry and 
seek growth in other vocations. Even they, 
while with us, were not good teachers ; they 
only had the possibilities of good teachers. 
They know that we permitted them to use 
us as stepping-stones in their own ambitions 
while they gave us the benefit of more or 
less ingenious experiments. 

This strong-handed education calls for a 
profession. How shall we get it ? By want- 
ing it. Demand calls into existence a supply. 
But what if our professional standard should 
exclude many w^ho are now officiating as 
teachers ? All the better ; we want to get 
rid of empirics. It will do them no harm to 
go back to school, learn the things we wish 
them to know, and come out as rational and 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 135 

competent teachers. They must, of course, at- 
tend tlie right schools ; for the longer they 
stay in certain schools, the less prepared will 
they be to pass a critical examination. Schools 
which do not make them think will leave 
them in a sad plight to approach a thinker. 
An important 2:)oint in our practical ethics is 
the injustice done to an individual by permit- 
ting him to teach before he is ready. We 
thereby stop his growth, cripple his mental 
stature, and dwarf his maturity. Where we 
intend a personal kindness we inflict serious 
injustice. It is important both for the teach- 
ers and the schools that such injustice should 
cease. 

The cpiestion of facilities for training a 
corps of teachers is a proper one to be con- 
sidered under practical ethics. The facili- 
ties for obtaining the requisite literary and 
scientific knowledge together with mental 
training are already ample. We have many 
institutions which give sound instruction and 
proper mental exercise. These have a capac- 



136 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

itj for training all the teachers we need, if 
the candidates for teaching would only enter 
them. But inasmuch as we practically place 
a premium on ignorance, these institutions are 
abandoned to candidates for other vocations. 
Xo candidate for teaching can plead want 
of facilities in justification of his ignorance. 
The energy proper to a teacher can readily 
find facilities near at hand, if he wishes to 
avail himself of them. 

But, in addition to general culture, the 
teacher needs special professional preparation. 
He needs instruction in the science and art 
of discipline, and in the science and art of in- 
struction. He needs training to skill in hand- 
ling the complex problems of school work. 
There are fair facilities for meeting even this 
want ; professional schools for teachers are 
already somewhat common in the United 
States. They are doing good woi'k, too, and 
are endeavoring to impart that fitness which 
teachers should possess. But in consequence 
of the evils heretofore mentioned, the experi- 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 137 

ence of the normal schools in this country has 
been rather ludicrous. They have been creat- 
ing a supply for which there is no demand. 
The normal graduate iinds that the districts 
don't want him ; he has become too good and 
costly an article for them. He finds the mar- 
ket glutted with parties holding certificates 
of fitness, and discovers that his chances to 
teach would have been greatly improved had 
he never attended "the normal." The badge 
of knighthood conferred by the superintend- 
ent politician demolishes the diploma of the 
professional graduate ; four years' hard labor 
is beaten by an " interview ;" incompetence 
has possession, and merit must seek its bread 
elsewhere. Appointive supervision is saving 
a fragment of normal material to the profes- 
sion ; but the majority of it is driven away. 
JSTormal schools will scarcely have a vocation 
until a professional diploma is made the only 
legal evidence of fitness to teach. In conse- 
quence of the disadvantages with which nor- 
mal graduates have to contend, the ruinous 



138 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

competition they have to encounter, our nor- 
mal schools have been obliged to descend 
from their high professional functions and 
place a premium on attendance to prevent 
entire desertion. This premium is in the 
form of academical or non-professional in- 
struction. Students of deficient education 
will enter for the benefits of the academy, 
making the professional curriculum a sec- 
ondary consideration. 

But normal schools are not censurable 
for offering this premium on attendance. 
It is absolutely necessary, under the present 
state of things. A strictly professional cur- 
riculum would constitute inducement to very 
few ; the schools would be compelled to 
close their doors for want of employment. 
Medical schools are supported because the 
law will not permit men to practise with- 
out absolutely obtaining a diploma. Law- 
schools are supj)orted because the law Avill 
not permit men to practise without virtually 
possessing a dij^loma. Theological schools are 



TRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 139 

supported because clmrch law requires diplo- 
mas. Kornial schools are neglected because 
their diplomas have uo particular legal or 
moral significance. In the State of Mas- 
sachusetts several of the more enterprising 
cities have been enabled to fill strictly pro- 
fessional training-schools with students, in con- 
sequence of making the diplomas of those 
schools the requisite evidences of fitness to 
teach. 

"Were such requirements universal, our nor- 
mal schools could then repudiate the pre- 
mium which they are now paying, and con- 
centrate their resources on strictly profes- 
sional work. These schools are not to blame 
for their own defects — the blame rests with 
our laws and customs. It is rather ludicrous 
to be compelled to pay in arithmetic and 
grammar for the privilege of teaching edu- 
cational science and art. But the fact is 
indicative of the state of our educational 
work. We should have such a demand for 
educational science and art as would tax 



140 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

our normal schools to their utmost capacity, 
and call into existence others. 

The masculine gender has been employed 
throughout this work. It is perhaps unnec- 
essary to say that this is only a form of 
expression intended to include both sexes. 
We have been treating of human nature, 
not particularly of masculine nature. But 
the question of female power in discipline 
is a vital one in practical ethics. We em- 
ploy many female teachers, but in practice 
we discriminate against the sex as such. 
This is, at the same time, unjust and highly 
imj^olitic. If our discrimination is a charge 
of universal incapacity in the sex, then we 
should not employ the sex at all ; we can- 
not afford to use incapacity in any form. 
But this assumption has been repeatedly 
overthrown by facts; some of our most ca- 
pable disciplinarians are females. Discipline 
does not depend on sex, but on the quali- 
ties heretofore discussed. Where these qual- 
ties are found, they should be recognized 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 141 

and preferred, regardless of sex. Indeed, if 
there is to be any discrimination in school 
management, it should be in favor of the 
capable woman : with equal intellectual ca- 
pacity, she is likely to have the greater 
moral resources of the two. 

It is true that experience has discovered 
many cases of female incapacity — an utter 
deficiency of organizing power and force. 
But so long as we aim, by our system of 
education, to keep our girls always children, 
we cannot expect a different experience. 
We make boys men by treating them as 
men; by reminding them of their possibil- 
ities and arousing their ambition. We dis- 
cuss serious subjects with our boys, and thus 
give them mental gymnastics ; we avoid se- 
rious subjects with children, in which class 
we have practically placed the girls. The 
result of such a procedure is obvious : we 
come to make a distinction really on ma- 
turity, while we suppose it is founded on 
sex. This is the educational fallacy we 



142 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

would refute. It is well known that bojs 
can be kept young by tlie same processes 
employed with girls. Effeminacy has come 
to be regarded as another term for child- 
ishness. We have effeminate men, who are 
simply the product of a system which aimed 
to keep them children, and succeeded. 

It is known that women mature after 
they are treated as adults — that is, after 
they are compelled by circumstances to as- 
sume responsibilities; the clinging vine be- 
comes the self-supporting trunk; and the 
child develops the largest business capac- 
ities. It is known, also, that woman does 
not necessarily lose her loveliness by be- 
coming self-centred and strong ; though shal- 
low observers would associate with strength 
such unseemly qualities as mannishness and 
hatefulness. We have been pursuing the 
error of keeping our girls weak in order 
to keep them lovely. Accomplishments are 
pleasing when they adorn a substance; a 
cornice without a house is a monstrosity. 



TRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 143 

A weakling will not make a disciplinarian ; 
if we would lit our girls for teaching, we 
should give them a substantial and serious 
training. It would be well to assume that 
all our girls are to teach ; for the same 
training that fits them to be successful teach- 
ers would make them excellent mothers. 

We have excluded from most of our 
strictures that portion of free education 
which chances to be under the management 
of appointive supervision. We have inti- 
mated that even that portion suffers to 
some extent from the inroads of selfishness, 
and that it is still a practical problem how 
that selfishness may be checked. It can be 
most effectually checked by fixing by law 
a genuine and uniform standard of fitness 
to teach. Individuals are flexible in matters 
of option ; but law is inflexible where it is 
specific. There appears at present no safer 
criterion of fitness than the diplomas of 
professional schools. It is the function of 
these institutions to study the w^ants of 



14:4: THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

scliools and supply those wants. But the 
faculty should be made impeachable for der- 
eliction of duty. The creation of a fraudu- 
lent teacher should be a crime punishable 
with the severest penalties. Legislation of 
this character would only be in keeping with 
that already enacted for the protection of 
medical practice. 

But appointive supervision, in which we 
take some comfort, is confined almost ex- 
clusively to cities. It becomes, therefore, an 
important point in practical ethics to con- 
sider the consequences of regaling our rural 
population with an educational farce. The 
rural population is the nation. Its condi- 
tion and characteristics are the condition and 
characteristics of national life. Cities are 
but sj^ecial instrumentalities for serving the 
wants of the rural population Cities are 
not self-sustaining, either in substance or in 
men. Cities are rooted in the country, and, 
in return for the conveniences they afford, 
they absorb and consume a portion of the 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 145 

substance and blood of tlie country. The 
country produces men, and cities wear them 
out. Cities also feed upon the morals of 
the country, which is the real source of a 
wholesome public opinion. Cities move their 
mighty operations because they always con- 
tain some countrymen who are not yet worn 
out ; cities contain honor and respectability 
mainly because they have some countrymen 
who are not yet altogether corrupted. 

The main significance of a city is its ca- 
pacity for consuming physical and moral 
stamina. The significance of the country is 
its capacity for producing physical and moral 
stamina. Many reasons could be advanced 
in support of these assertions. We will se- 
lect a few. The country air is pure, while 
the city air is poisoned with pestiferous ex- 
halations. The country has pure water and 
fresh food ; the city's food is stale, to say 
the least, and its water is such as circum- 
stances and contrivances make it. The coun- 
try sleeps at night, while the city runs riot, 
K 



146 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

wearing out vitality and scattering the seeds 
of vice. The country has youth, while the 
city has " juveniles." The country, then, has 
the materials for stalwart men — viz., phys- 
ical soundness and moral health. But it has 
not only the materials, but also the condi- 
tions, for large manhood. Country labor 
is largely physical, and so contributes to 
sound rest, instead of impairing it. Much 
of this labor is needed exercise ; shattered 
constitutions have been restored by engag- 
ing in it. The enterpi-ise of the country 
is based on the simpler laws of nature, 
and on accurate predictions ; so the men- 
tal problems are few, and consequently the 
mental wear and tear small. The coun- 
try incites to honesty and character. In a 
measure, they are inbred. They are also 
enforced by the circumstances of the situa- 
tion. In the country the family institution 
prevails in its purest form ; children are 
born into the patriarchal system, and asso- 
ciate mostly during early life with father. 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 147 

mother, sisters, and brothers. They are con- 
strained by the ties of nature to be true 
and loyal to these associates, and are under 
the moulding influence of honest parentage. 
The result is a rural conscience, which is 
sharply contrasted with city caution ; the 
one is the monition of the heart, the other 
the monition of the head ; the one is the 
motive of personal dignity, the other the 
motive of personal safety; the one is an in- 
ternal, the other an external motive ; the one 
is a tribute to individual strength, the other 
a compliment to the force of social organi- 
zation; the one is a respect for right, the 
other a respect for comfort and convenience. 
Furthermore, rural transactions are per- 
sonal; it is more difficult to wrong those 
we know, and with whom we must mingle 
in daily association, than those w^ho have 
but a mythical existence on paper. So ed- 
ucation, habit, circumstance, contribute to 
moral life and growth in the country. ISTor 
will it be far-fetched to assert that Mother 



148 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

Nature warms the heart to just and noble 
purposes. We have enumerated some ex- 
cellent moral forces in the country. They 
need but to be supplemented with sound in- 
struction, whereby the eyes of thought may 
be opened and the soul aroused to a reali- 
zation of its possibilities. With this want 
provided, the country becomes the grand 
producing - ground of manhood and public 
opinion. 

In consequence of this want, there is a 
constant exodus from the country of fam- 
ilies who wish to place their children within 
reach of intellectual advantages. This in- 
volves a double calamity ; for the children 
who go to cities to be instructed get their 
knowledge at the expense of moral loss, while 
the country suffers in tone by the loss of its 
better elements and by the influx of inferior 
classes. This exodus of families, and also of 
brilliant youths, drawn to the dazzling op- 
portunities of cities, leads many to suppose 
that knowledge and culture are incompatible 



PEACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 149 

with rural life and pursuits. But the »as- 
sumption is not true. It is not vocation 
that distributes men, but rather congeniality 
of ideals. If we aim to fasten upon the 
country population a totally uninspired ex- 
istence, we must expect the more sensitive 
souls to flee away from it. Human nature 
cannot endure isolation ; man must mingle 
with his kind, or be unhappy. 

Rural pursuits, as such, are not distasteful 
to scholarship. They are, on the contrary, 
the preferred employments of some of our 
most cultured men. We can fortunately 
point to some college farmers. Agriculture 
thrives when science strikes the fields ; we 
have then improved products, increased pro- 
duction, and organized thought. Our agri- 
cultural societies are evidences that some 
brain has forced its way into the domain 
of production ; and the proceedings of those 
societies have evinced the deepest learning 
applied to the most practical things. Our 
scholar-farmers are lifting agriculture out of 



150 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

a retrogressive and wasteful empiricism into 
a broad science ; and where is the man who 
is too large to treat the subject of agricultural 
science ? The scientific farmer is the largest 
and wisest man in the nation^ because all 
social problems have their roots in his; his 
line of thought and interest commands the 
whole domain of social activity; he has the 
only training for the ideal statesman. 

We expect to see our new-born agricult- 
ural societies dealing ere long with this 
problem of education ; for it is an agricult- 
Tiral problem. It will be apparent that the 
rural districts will be profited as much by 
improved men and women as by improved 
cattle, soils, and cereals. Empirical farming 
curtails production and exhausts the lands 
it operates upon ; science reaps its golden 
stores, and leaves the ground fatter for fut- 
ure jiroduction. Mere muscle has had its 
day; we have learned the uses of an intelli- 
gent soldiery ; we will learn the uses of an 
intelligent yeomanry. 



PRACTICAL SCHOOL ETHICS. 151 

We need, perhaps, but recapitulate that 
every consideration of national welfare, as 
well as every consideration of right and jus- 
tice, impels us to carry the torch of instruc- 
tion into the rural districts. Instead of a 
system of make-believes, propagating imbe- 
cility, let us have a system of schools that 
will take hold of the children and strength- 
en the fibres of their threefold nature — physi- 
cal, intellectual, and moral. Let us have a 
system that begins to make maturity by first 
knowing what maturity is. Let us erect such 
safeguards around the vocation of teaching 
that educational quackery in this country will 
be impossible. 



152 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 

We have discussed some of the ethics of 
the community. We j)ass to other classes of 
problems more restricted, perhaps, though not 
less weighty, nor less important. Blessed are 
the wise parents. In nothing do the beauty 
and wisdom of divine purj^ose shine out 
more clearly than in the family relation. 
The family is not only society in miniature ; 
it is also an epitome of all the problems of 
society. Men aspire to wealth and inHii- 
ence ; he who has a family possesses both. 
The Homan matron, when asked to display 
her jewels, led forward two glorious boys. 
Her sense of affluence was not affected by 
the absence of horses, dogs, lands, and trin- 
kets. Her gallery, however, contained the 
richest of earthly treasures — living statuary 
and breathing pictures: she held two bright 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 153 

and loving souls who honored and cherished 
the mother tliat nourished them. No won- 
der that her bosom heaved with the sense 
of great possession ; she led by the hand 
Rome's freedom and the liberties of man- 
kind. Cornelia and her bright -eyed boys 
are moving the world to-day after the lapse 
of two thousand years ; the trinkets of her 
haughty neighbors hang in our museums, 
inviting speculation as to the individuals 
for whom history gives no sign. 

She knew her wealth, for she knew the 
toil and watchful solicitude that produced it. 
The artist mother recognized her handiwork 
in every graceful movement, in every brill- 
iant conception, in every lofty sentiment that 
found expression in her children. She had 
put them there. She was but a woman, the 
daughter of Africanus ; yet she proved her- 
self worth two sons. Her case illustrates a 
universal truth ; if parents choose to put their 
own souls into their children, they can do it. 
But they ought to see to it that they have 



164: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

good souls to put into them. An energetic 
Dacian mother would doubtless have made 
the Gracchi successful hunters; an Egyptian 
mother would have prepared them to toil 
submissively in the quarries all their lives, in 
order to furnish a tomb for a tyrant king; a 
Spartan mother would have made them val- 
orous thieves ; but the Eoman Cornelia made 
them men. They were men because she 
wanted them to be men, and because she 
knew what constitutes manhood, and how it 
is developed. She had an ideal, a purpose, 
and a skill ; she was, in short, fitted for the 
parental office. She blessed her boys when 
they bared their breasts against the ranks of 
injustice; she thanked her lucky stars for 
such boys, as she received their mangled 
bodies, and closed their eyes in death. Her 
boys had sentiments, and were true to them. 
Death in a cause is the highest proof of 
earnestness ; as she buried her heroes she felt 
that he is but a feeble moralist who will take 
no risk in behalf of his principles. 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 155 

Yes, a family supplies wealth and infliv 
eiice — an influence of a definite character, 
which can be estimated. A parent's influ- 
ence is not precarious, at the mercy of rare 
opportunities ; he has possession of the child, 
and with it unlimited opportunity. The par- 
ent can renew himself in his child and re- 
pair the blunders of his own career, which 
experience has made apparent to him. If 
the parent has external ambitions, he can ad- 
vance them by inspiring his child with the 
same purposes ; and surely if he wishes to 
influence the community, he cannot find a 
more favorable point to operate upon than 
his child. His suggestions fall upon a friend- 
1}^ ear ; he is sure of carrying conviction. If 
a parent has views, he makes a great mistake 
in withholding them from his children. 

But men are intellectually ambitious, and 
like scope for their powers. There is no 
wider field for the exercise of intellectual 
activity than that afforded by family prob- 
lems. He who will condescend to study 



156 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

tliem will find the most edifying exercise 
and the most wide-reaching science. A par- 
ent can find his best personal interests in 
the line of his dntj ; he can find the larg- 
est life in dealing out justice to his child. 
He is absolute monarch of an interesting 
domain ; his government, when he chooses 
to exercise it, gives scope for the largest 
capacity, and is attended with the most 
gratifj^ng results. 

Besides dereliction of duty, a man makes 
a great mistake in stej^ping over the prob- 
lems of his family to reach those beyond. 
Before he attempts to govern the public, 
he should first be satisfied in his mind that 
he has been a successful governor in liis 
own household. It makes a large discount 
on a man's supposed greatness to find that 
he is the parent of wayward children. In 
attempting to cultivate distant fields, he has 
let the garden of his household be overrun 
with weeds. He must thereafter ever face 
the evidences of failure — evidences patent 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 157 

not only to himself, but to all who know 
the condition of his domestic establishment. 
A wayward household is an ungoverned 
liousehold, in which government has either 
abdicated its function, or has been over- 
thrown by its own rebellious subjects in 
consequence of its own usurpations of un- 
constitutional powers- Here is the rub. It 
is folly to attempt the mastery of state con- 
stitutions until one understands that consti- 
tution on which they are modelled. 

As gravitation is the basis of universal 
order and law, so is the bread-and-butter 
problem the basis of all other family prob- 
lems. But this would be a desolate and 
dreary universe were all other forces sus- 
pended but that of gravitation. The mul- 
tiplied forms of beauty, which result from 
the combination and co-operation of forces, 
would give way to a dread monotony. So 
likewise may there be dread desolation in 
the household if the parent sees nothing 
in his mission beyond the necessities of 



158 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

the table and the wardrobe. He has made 
beantj possible ; but instead of securing it 
he has invited either the drear waste of in- 
anity or the black storms of satanic forces. 
In all this we have assumed that the par- 
ent has supplied the bread, which is his 
duty to do. Matters are brought to a 
worse pass when he so far violates natural 
law as to regard his children as bread-win- 
ners instead of opening buds. True, he 
should prepare them to be good bread-win- 
ners when they pass from his jurisdiction; 
but they are not the bread-winners of his 
household. But the abuses of the bread 
question are intensified when the parent 
compels his children to be money-makers 
for their own sakes. That is but an ac- 
cursed thrift which is acquired at the ex- 
pense of soul and body. But the greatest 
abuse occurs when the parent compels the 
children to make money for his sake. The 
other error, though serious in its conse- 
quences, carries with it some extenuation 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 159 

in the form of intended benevolence. But 
this last is the blackest of crimes, and goes 
farther than any other one thing to prove 
the doctrine of total depravity. Nothing 
conld better show the ntter absence of 
worthy sentiments and emotions than the 
coining of one's own flesh and blood into 
lilthy Incre. 

The parent who is awake sees a hundred 
other problems besides that which concerns 
the cupboard and the clothes - press. He 
sees before him plastic minds and souls, ca- 
pable of receiving any impression he may 
choose to make upon them, and capable 
of becoming things of beauty and joy for- 
ever. He considers how he may awaken 
and feed aptitudes ; he watches with in- 
terest those which burst forth spontaneous- 
ly, knowing them to be the suggestions 
of nature, revealing the bent and qual- 
ities of soul ; he sees a thousand oppor- 
tunities for impressing practical lessons in 
thought, feeling, and morals. Happy the 



160 THE SCHOOL AND THE rA]MILY. 

individual who can do a good tiling, and 
say, " 'Twas thus my father taught me to 
act." 

All children have the common mission of 
becoming mature men and women ; but the 
special mission of each in life should de- 
pend upon the preponderance of aptitudes. 
It is a parental problem to detect this pre- 
ponderance and know in advance what the 
child's mission is to be, long before it makes 
the selection. This knowledge will enable 
the parent to speed that mission. The se- 
lection should always be made by the child ; 
the parental function is to make a wise se- 
lection probable. Genius chafes and pines 
when it is out of its element; most failures 
are due to the arbitrary selection of voca- 
tions. 

Every facnlty in the human constitution 
has beauty in its construction and grandeur 
in its purj^ose. The parental problems are 
coextensive with these faculties, and may 
best be referred to them. The problems of 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 161 

duty are to supply nourisliinent to all the 
faculties, and to see that none are perverted 
or withered by disuse. 

There is a very common reluctance on 
the part of parents towards entertaining any 
of the family problems except that of bread 
and butter. There are circumstances which 
render it questionable how far even this is 
unselfish. Parents must eat, and must there- 
fore have a furnished table to which the chil- 
dren are necessarily admitted. It is doubtless 
true that culinary matters are considered, for 
the most part, from the standpoint of parental 
appetite. But parents are under compulsion 
of law and custom to feed and clothe their 
children; so it remains an open question 
how far this feeding is a thoroughly benevo- 
lent act. It is certain that some parents per- 
mit their children to go hungry while they 
gratify their own appetites at prodigious ex- 
pense. 

But whether or not we trace selfishness 
to the table, we certainly do trace it to other 
L 



162 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

problems of the family. Many parents re- 
gard the advent of children as a calamity 
and tlieir presence an annoyance. The chil- 
dren are interlopers who interfere with the 
routine of habit, or disturb the weighty re- 
flections that possess parental minds. When 
fehe children are good-natured, they are dan- 
dled on the knee as interesting toys; but 
when they are in trouble, they are bundled 
off to the nursery or to an infant school. 
The fact that the child is troubled is over- 
looked ; the only thing realized is that he 
is troublesome. Banishment is the remedy 
for his sufferings — banishment from the pa- 
rental bosom to the management of a testy 
nurse or nervous school-teacher. We have 
the comi):ion phenomenon of a parent en- 
casing himself in selfishness and keeping 
his children at bay. It has a suggestion of 
frost. The advances and encroachments of 
childhood are little knockings at the pa- 
rental heart. Instinct tells the child that 
that is his place wherein he may nestle and 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. WS 

be warmed by the fires of affection, jnst as 
tlie cliickeii knows by instinct that comfort 
prevails under the parent wing. Tlie warm 
solicitude and faithful parentage of the brute 
creation put to blush, in many cases, the 
parentage of man. The sense of desolation 
and suffering in a banished child must be 
horrible beyond comparison. Such parental 
mistakes prepare the way for frightful re- 
actions. 

Parents who wish to solve family prob- 
lems will dismiss entirely from mind the 
idea that children are, in any sense, en- 
cumbrances. They will not seek the so- 
ciety and applause of heartless flatterers in 
preference to the society and love of their 
affectionate babes. They will not seek di- 
version in companionship steeped in sin, 
while angels of purity are waiting in their 
own household to cheer their hours and 
teach them the way to heaven. "Out of 
the mouth of babes and sucklings cometh 
praise ;" the parent who starts in earnest 



164: THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

to instruct his child will find himself the 
most instructed of the two. The little one 
is freighted with suggestions from the In- 
finite, untarnished bj the faults and fallacies 
of the world ; and he cooes into the parental 
car the voice of the Eternal Father. The 
parent will heed the knockings ; he will open 
the door of his heart and let his little dar- 
lings in, never again to be separated from 
his consciousness while life lasts. 

The significance of the knockings is that 
the little ones would be shielded from the 
clammy touches of the world and have r* 
strong bulwark between them and evil. 
Yice recruits its ranks from the victims of 
parental selfishness ; it is powerless to reach 
such children as Cato's daughter or Corne- 
lia's sons. Parental exclusiveness is the Mo- 
loch of modern times ; parents ,^re so pre- 
occupied with business and^sot-ial cares that 
they have no time nor inclination to ward 
off the many -armed monster that is reach- 
ing after the fresh and blooming children. 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 165 

Parents would justify tins exelusiveness 
on tlie ground that tliey support institutions 
for the instruction and training of children. 
The excuse is not valid. Schools are design- 
ed as supplements to parental effort, not 
as substitutes for it. Schools address them- 
selves mainly to intellect ; they do not hold 
examinations in virtue. The culture of the 
heart is peculiarly the work of the home. 
Cornelia was not mistress of the calculus, 
nor the German language ; but she was mis- 
tress of the soul. Instead of heart-culture at 
schools, the chances are altogether in favor of 
finding evil associations, calling for renewed 
efforts on the part of parents to counteract 
them. The parent has no right to possess 
thoughts, tastes, and purposes secluded from 
his children. The child inherits all the ex- 
perience of the parent ; and the latter should 
hasten to put the little one into possession. 
A domestic Sphinx or Sir Oracle was never 
contemplated by nature any more than a do- 
mestic tyrant. Professional men are espe- 



166 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMIL 

ciallj apt to withdraw into themselves, in 
consequence of the preoccupation of their 
studies, and to lose the tliread of the fami- 
ly's dailj history. The law of family hap- 
piness and prosperity is freedom of associa- 
tion. Whatever checks this is detrimental 
to all the family problems. Business neces- 
sitates a certain amount of separation be- 
tween parent and child ; but the worst form 
of separation is that which occurs when they 
are togetlier — the sejDaration of souls. Busi- 
ness is a stern necessity, connected with the 
bread problem; but it should not be carried 
home. 

But in the beautiful order of thinors one 
l^arent is free from business engagements. 
The mother cannot be excused for becoming 
oblivious of her chiklren. The Creator has 
given her warm affections and unlimited oj)- 
portunity for domestic culture. She is the 
real parent, the home - builder. While her 
husband is wrestling with the bread problem, 
she is esjDecially responsible for the solution 



FAMILY PKOBLEMS. 167 

of the others. It is her function to detect 
the spiritual and intellectual needs of her 
children, and to furnish the nourishment 
which tliose needs require. She is the gar- 
dener of the household, who sows the seeds 
of virtue, waters its phmts and flowers, and 
uproots the little springing weeds of vice. 
'Tis she who must arouse and nourish the 
aptitudes; 'tis she who must inculcate self- 
restraint and subjection to just authority. 
She has to manage not only her children, 
but also her husband; she is the inductive 
philosopher of the household, and she has to 
indoctrinate her husband and children ^\'ith 
the fruits of her observations. If home 
dravrs its members awav from competing 
allurements, the victory is hers. If home is 
enriched with the jewels of a true nobility, 
the pride of achievement is hers. 

It is, then, a great privilege to be a mother. 
Her office is the most dignified and influen- 
tial on earth. The sort of greatness which 
domineers a senate does not compare either 



168 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

in qiiantitj or quality with the greatness 
that successfully rules a family. As family 
organization is the model of social organiza- 
tion, so is family statesmanship the model of 
social statesmanship. Family statesmanship 
finds its embodiment in the tlioughtful, ju- 
dicious, faithful mother. She is the ideal of 
earthly excellence, the centre and source of 
the best social forces. If mothers are faith- 
ful to their trust, the j^roblems of school dis- 
cipline will be greatly simplified. We have 
some modern Cornelias who are giving noble 
men and women to society. Perhaps not all 
who contemplate the massive unselfishness 
and generosity of Washington are conscious 
of the extent to which he was indebted for 
his traits to the training of his mother. But 
motherhood is beginning to receive recogni- 
tion as a mighty j)Ower; and in the near fut- 
ure, maternity, instead of paternity, will be 
taken as the key to a man's character. He 
is such as his mother makes him ; and there 
will cease to be an analysis which does not 



FAMILY PROBLEMS. 1G9 

include the mother. But the great mis- 
sion of motherhood affords no time for 
vanity. Her problems are such as to re- 
quire earnest, persevering purpose. 



170 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



YOUTH'S PROBLEMS. 

If parents were always in order, there 
could be no necessity for discussing the prob- 
lems of youth : children could be referred 
to their parents for counsel in all matters 
2)ertaining to their ambitions. But inasmuch 
as many children are jostled aside by parent- 
al selfishness, and compelled to solve their 
own problems, it becomes proj^jer to make 
them an audience. The trouble with young 
people is inexperience. They feel that they 
have problems, but they do not understand 
them ; they engage in a blind battle with 
fate. They feel within themselves an in- 
stinct to do and to be : it is the divine pur- 
pose spurring them on to their mission. 
They are conscious of something around 
them called the world — an indefinite some- 
thing — to which they must adjust them- 



youth's problems. 171 

selves; they liave indistinct notions of growth 
and a future ; they are totally ignorant of 
law, hut sanguine of success, and are prone 
to plunge headlong across the lines of rela- 
tions into numberless mistakes. 

Wisdom is not the portion of youth ; that 
comes only by experience. Since youth is 
blind, its first need is wise and benevolent 
counsel in which it can trust Avith implicit 
faith. It never ogives this 'faith to doo:ma- 
tism ; it only yields it to sympathy. Young 
people are prone to secretiv^eness in regard 
to their personal purposes. They could not 
make a greater mistake than to nurse a soli- 
tary ambition ; tbeir prosperity and happiness 
would be greatly enhanced by discussing 
their intentions with an older friend. But 
youth's ideals are too sacred to be exposed 
to any but the most friendly eye. The best 
test of sympathy and goodness is a child's 
conlidence. Happy the parent who has the 
confidence of his child; happy the child 
whose parent can command its confidence. 



172 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

Happy the teacher who gets the confidence 
of his pupil ; hap]3y the pupil who finds a 
teacher worthy of confidence. The youth 
who has his own problems to solve should 
select his mentor, his pilot, his older self with 
whom he can hold most intimate communion. 
He will thus iiave ballast and direction to 
guard him from disaster. A youth who is 
without any counsel but his own instincts is 
in a precarious condition ; he is exposed to so 
many dangers of whose existence he is entire- 
ly unconscious that one cannot observe him 
without trembling. His future may be ru- 
ined by the accidents of an hour, all his 
bright possibilities eclipsed in the eternal 
nio^ht of failure. 

Young people are prone to a remarkable 
falhicy — that of eagerness to get rid of their 
youth, as though youth were a rej^roach. We 
have not too much youth at the best ; we 
cannot afford to lose any portion of it. Ma- 
turity is conditioned in the uses of youth ; in 
proportion as youth is destroyed, maturity 



youth's problems. 173 

is impaired. Those who grow restive with 
youth, and inflate tlieniselves into an imagi- 
nary manhood, are likely to possess but an im- 
aginary manhood while they live ; they are 
as dwarfs disporting in giant's trappings. 
jN^ever, until they become humble and realize 
their true dimensions, will they grow towards 
fitting the garments they have selected for 
their persons. It is sad to see self -conse- 
quence demanding the homage of the crowd 
and smarting under the crowd's indifference. 
It is sad to see a youth embarrassed by his 
fancied size, and wincing under the supposed 
gaze of thousands who do not see him at all. 
Young people are doubtless goaded on to 
casting away their youth by the notions of 
the knowing ones. Good people, of course, 
never sneer at greenness ; they consider it a 
very proper and beautiful thing, its juices 
giving rich promise of the vigorous fibre 
and the ripened fruit further on. But the 
corrupt, who have blackened their own nat- 
ures, find purity offensive, and aim to make 



17-i THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

it dissatisfied with itself. Youth makes the 
mistake of supposing that only the know- 
ing ones are wise, and that good people are 
fogies. It hastens to smirch its own white- 
ness and earn the badge of maturity by pro- 
ficiency in vice. The blushing boy is fas- 
cinated by the composure of the " blood," 
while he is exasperated by his taunts ; he 
hastens to be himself a blood with loud cos- 
tume, a defiant eye, an aggressive gait, a foul 
vocabulary, loathsome habits, and a loath- 
some record. The boy escapes the specific 
persecution, it is true; but he escapes tempo- 
rary annoyances at the expense of perdition. 
The innocence and modesty, which the wick- 
ed call greenness, are a boy's brightest pos- 
sessions. They are the characteristics of real 
boyhood ; and a real boy is a pleasing sight 
— a boy who acknowledges a novelty and 
opens his eyes with wonder. There is hope 
for a boy who can be surprised. Growth is 
pleasing, but precocity is offensive, especially 
the precocity of evil: the so-called young 
men are nondescripts. 



YOUTirS PROBLEMS. 175 

Almost every scliool tests a boy's moral 
courage; for it is almost sure to contain a 
certain amount of taunting precocity, even if 
it does not contain an element of finished 
bloods. A boy with a conscience is put to 
the torture of doing wrong to escape sneers. 
The knowing ones enthrall him, while the 
massive dignity of his preceptor is unfelt. It 
is thus that vice and disorder propagate them- 
selves. Precocity in schools has its grada- 
tions, from the urchin who fastens pins in 
the seat to the college blood who patronizes 
his old j^rofessors and languidly pooh-poohs 
the superstitions ideas of mankind in regard 
to goodness. This last-named individual is 
a character. In his " diversions " he has 
run the whole gamut of mischief and wicked- 
ness, causing a thousand heartaches to parents, 
teachers, and friends. He reaches a point at 
last where exhaustion and seniorial traditions 
combine to secure a fair exterior. After 
having jested with every sacred thing, and 
after having given unbridled rein to all his 



176 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

passions and propensities, he relapses into a 
quiet cj^nicism, smiling ironically at the 
yonthfulness of the world, because it does 
not grow old as fast as he did. He is a 
sphinx-like terror to the unspoiled freshman ; 
his smile is more tantalizing than the open 
sneers of younger reprobates. 

It will be observed that the evil world is 
very attentive to the boys, driving and luring 
them into its ranks. If the good world com- 
peted for the boys w^ith equal diligence, we 
should have fewer failures. But the good 
w^orld is generally so absorbed in great en- 
terjDrises as to be oblivious of snch things as 
boys and their destinies. Boys are brushed 
aside with such lack of sympathy that it 
seems as if the good world forgets that it 
once passed through the stage of boyhood. 
Boys must have wise and sympathetic coun- 
sel, or they will win their wisdom at the 
expense of lost opportunities. Hero-worship 
is characteristic of youth. Boys become bad 
because they are permitted to seek their own 



youth's problems. 177 

models, iind because bad models are obtru- 
sively thrust upon them. Those who are too 
weak or vile to conmumd the homage of the 
world revel in the gushing homage of the 
boys. But boys are as willing to deify good- 
ness if it does them a kindness and reaches 
their sympathies. Boys are imaginative and 
constructive. They must admire. If not 
drawn to revere strong models, they will dress 
up a fiend witli virtues. We forget that boys 
are to be courted when we try to drive them 
into the Avays of rectitude. It is strange that 
boys are not understood by those who have 
been boys : the most sensitive natures are left 
to build their air-castles alone, and have their 
hopes dashed by repeated slights and rebuffs. 
The problems of unaided youth are certain- 
ly very weighty ones. It seems as though 
the world conspires against them : those who 
carry through to manhood a consistent am- 
bition have to lift mountains. This is all 
wrong ; the mature generation owes the boys 
a helping hand, and pilotage instead of sup- 
M 



178 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

pression. No boy is fully capable of under- 
standing his destiny and shaping correct ends 
unaided. The " excelsior " impulse is im- 
planted within him ; but it may drive him 
on to the rotten branch that overhangs the 
yawning abyss. He needs the warning voices 
of those who know the ro^d. But as his im- 
pulses originate in his breast, he likewise 
hears only with his breast ; he comprehends 
only the logic of affection. His one active 
sense must be reached in order to control 
him. A Socrates or Confucius Avill draw 
the boys, while they give the scowling Di- 
ogenes a wide berth. 

The Quixotic impulses of youth do not re- 
quire suppression, but direction. Show them 
the windmills, but do not depress their 
cliivalry. As experience brings its light they 
will direct their onslaughts upon real foes. 
Happy the boy avIio is not tamed by his ex- 
perience and who gets his light without loss 
of volition. In practice we seek simply to 
conquer the irrepressible boys, and we sue- 



youth's pkoulems. 179 

ceed. The world has strategy ; the boys liave 
none. We thus fill the world with quaking 
cowards, where there ought to be lion-hearted 
heroes. The boys throw down the gauntlet 
to destiny ; they rush upon unseen w^eapons ; 
they are punished, overcome, humiliated, dis- 
couraged. Select the bitterest misanthrope, 
and you will find an individual who started 
into life a veritable Bayard. AYhen we speak 
of the " cold world," we mean the conquered 
boys whose enthusiasm vanished with their 
hopes, and who have been driven to assume a 
desperate defensive. But the young genera- 
tion are ever warm with generous sentiments 
and noble, unselfish purposes. The hope of 
society is not in the blasted trunk, but in the 
thrifty, pliable sapling. 

"What a beautiful order of things surrounds 
the air-castles of youth ! Therein are ceru- 
lean skies, embowering landscapes ; beauty 
everywhere in infinite variety of forms ; man 
at his best estate vying with his kind in vir- 
tue ; all prosperity, happiness, love ; a general 



180 THE SCHOOL AND THE FA3IILY. 

movement in nnison with the soul of the In- 
finite. This is holy ground — the vision of 
earthly destiny brought by new arrivals that 
have not yet learned the discords in real 
things. The awakening from this ideal 
world to the real world of wrong, of suffer- 
ing and despair, is a harsh and terrible crisis 
in a human life. But though the dream de- 
parts, its standard of perfection remains to in- 
spire efforts of reform. The attempt to cor- 
rect things, though bootless, is worthy of all 
praise and admiration. Maturity is wise 
when it keeps an ear close to the suggestions 
of dreaming youth and tries to analyze tlie 
earthly heaven of a boy's brain. Maturity is 
true when it keeps watch and ward over the 
boy and protects him from tlie snares which 
lie cannot liimself see. Maturity is unwise 
as well as unkind when it robs a boy of his 
visions before he is ready to face a disordered 
world. 

A youth should not trust to his own un- 
aided judgment in shaping his future. Xo 



youth's problems. 181 

single step should be resolved ui^on without 
counselling with maturity. He will thus be 
saved the punishment attendant upon mis- 
takes. His parent is his proper mentor. But 
if deprived of parental guidance, he should 
seek a substitute for it among the worthiest 
of his acquaintance. That substitute should 
be one who lives well, and who both knows 
and feels. He is fortunate if he can find his 
cabinet in his teacher. 

The enemies of youth are internal as well 
as external ; and he encounters both under 
the same disadvantage of inexperience. He 
is subjected to a fiery warfare of propensities 
and passions without understanding their nat- 
ure or the law of self-control. He learns law 
by experience, it is true ; but his knowledge 
may come after violation of law has worked 
his ruin, and after he has become the slave 
of habit. The problems of youth are all 
involved in the general problem of getting 
development and a rich experience without 
personal loss. 



182 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 



TEACHERS' PROBLEMS. 

The teacher's problems are great, even 
when he approaches them with due prepara- 
tion and in the proper spirit. His problems 
are the improvement of society through the 
development of the young and the diffusion 
of intelligence and morality. As free gov- 
ernment extends through the world it anch- 
ors its hopes in the schoolmaster. The teach- 
er is the connecting link between the great 
past and the great future. He is the conser- 
vator of progress. The great future appeals 
to him through the eyes of the little ones, 
and asks him for the report of time. Time 
has brought knowledge and wisdom to light ; 
the future is prepared to use them, and trusts 
him to transmit the heritage. Viewed sim- 
ply in his relation to the ages, the teacher's 
responsibilities are vast, and should be ap- 



teachers' PKOBLEilS. 183 

proaclied with reverence. But in regard to 
his immediate surroundings, he stands in im- 
portant relation to tlie welfare of society, and 
to the highest good and happiness of sensitive 
and immortal beings. 

That deep reflection is required in order to 
meet the demands of these responsibilities 
and relations will scarcely be questioned. 
But what is it to reflect ? It is to think, to 
reason, to find out law. What is law ? It is 
the normal form of an activity. The teacher 
is the exponent of discipline, the personifica- 
tion and efiicient director of that power which 
is to control the school to the best interests of 
all concerned. We have discussed the nature 
of that power and the conditions of its suc- 
cessful operation. It is needless to urge that 
a knowledge of those conditions is essential 
to success. But when philosophy has ex- 
liausted itself, it only carries the teacher to 
liis problems ; his success then depends upon 
his own personal power. That power con- 
sists — 1st, in making up his case and stating 



lS:t THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

it trutlifully ; 2d, in carrying out faithfully 
the suggestions of j)hilosop]iy. 

In making up his case he distinguishes and 
defines with accuracy the salient peculiarities 
of his field — including, among other things, 
his general physical surroundings, the charac- 
teristics of the people, and the history of past 
government in the school. Most of the data 
for the case may be obtained in advance of 
the opening of school. The teacher who thus 
collects it will be prepared to anticipate, or 
at least understand, the manifestations of tlie 
children when they assemble. His minute 
inquiries will make a favorable impression 
upon the people by indicating something of 
his capacity and earnestness. The people are 
seldom lukewarm towards a teacher ; they 
either like or dislike him intensely. The 
children know this verdict, and are influ- 
enced by it in their own conduct. First im- 
pressions take deep root; and the teacher 
makes a mistake in leaving those impressions 
at the mercv of disorderlv children. 



teachers' troblems. 185 

But in tlie case of collecting data the im- 
pressions were onlj a secondary motive. In 
like manner, every really wise and well-con- 
sidered act starts a widening circle of good 
influences. But the opposite is also true, that 
an unwise act has its series of evil concomi- 
tants. It is difficult to entirely repair a blun- 
der, for one can seldom tell how far the 
poison has spread. These facts should not 
make teachers cowardly, but only cause them 
to defer decisive action till after mature re- 
flection. There is a difference between gov- 
ernments that are elastic and those that are 
inconsistent ; better defer a decision than re- 
call an impolitic edict. The latter is defeat, 
and paralyzes discipline. The delay of rigid 
authority is not weak temporizing ; it is onl}^ 
giving principles time to bear their fruits ; it 
is a recognition of the important fact that au- 
thority must be established before it can be 
exercised. 

It will aid the teacher in the analysis and 
management of his case to commit his data 



186 THE SCHOOL AND THE FA:MILy. 

to wiTting ; for it may become quite volumi- 
nous after the preliminary information has 
been supplemented by the revelations of the 
school-room. He relieves his memory there- 
by, and is also better enabled to study his 
case. The rule should be to make every in- 
cident affecting discipline a matter of record 
and reflection before decisive action. Disci- 
pline is a growth in each particular school ; it 
is not the application of rigid universal rules. 
The teacher who brings a list of rules to be 
enforced and defended invites and secures de- 
feat. The rules which are admirably adapted 
to one school may be very inapplicable to 
another. The issues which call for decisive 
action will arise fast enough without precipi- 
tating a fight along the wdiole line by the in- 
troduction of artificial rules. It is easier to 
conquer an enemy by cutting off his detach- 
ments in detail than by inviting a general 
concentration of forces. 

Decisive action upon an issue does estab- 
lish a rule, for it carries the implication that 



teachers' problems. 187 

all similar cases will be disposed of in a simi- 
lar manner. In this way there will grow np 
a list of rules for that particular school. The 
establishment of rules marks the progress of 
discipline, and with it the progress of the 
children and the people. A rule properly 
established is an event of great im]3ortance 
in the history of a school ; it records the 
growth of just authority, and its correlate 
submission. A rule established is a fortress 
won, in which are implied all the skirmish- 
ings with the outposts, the gradual invest- 
ment, the sapping and mining, the forward 
movement to the ultimate reduction and final 
surrender. A rule established is a record of 
work. 

The teacher's data may exhibit a long cat- 
alogue of disorders. It would be very con- 
venient if these could be at once obliterated 
by the promulgation of rules and penalties. 
Canute would give rules to the sea, and the 
sea dashed over him and his rules. So, like- 
wise, the great sea of human feeling, emotion, 



188 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

passion, defies the edict of a little despot. If 
the teacher assumes that the children are a 
mob, thej will ultimately justify his assump- 
tion by becoming a veritable mob. He may 
possess brute force enough to suppress the 
mob for the time being; but the mob spirit 
js there awaiting its opportunity for license. 
Must we look for the qualities of the prize- 
fighter in the person we would pronounce fit 
to control a school ? This requirement would 
rule out many estimable and powerful teach- 
ers. The solution must be sought in other 
qualities. In fact, anything particularly san- 
guinary ought to tell against the candidate. 
But a steady eye and force of character are 
not brutish; they indicate power of soul. 
Moral resolution (the power needed) may be 
found in a frame that would abhor physical 
struggles. 

What will the teacher do who has collected 
his data,, and discovers that past mismanage- 
ment has organized a mob for him ? He will 
utterly ignore the oflice of policeman, and 



189 



assume his proper character of parent and 
friend. He will dissolve the mob hy con- 
vincing it that there is no occasion for its 
existence; he will guard against all fretful- 
ness and preserve a cheerful, benignant de- 
meanor ; he will reach the better sentiments 
of the children, and organize those sentiments 
as a basis of discipline. He will keep in 
abeyance his policy as a ruler until he has 
established his character as a friend. Even 
then he will not reveal his policy except as 
circumstances j)ermit it to become law. The 
teacher's acts are proper topics of comment ; 
his intentions are his own ; besides, it strength- 
ens a man to be supposed to have reserved 
power. If a teacher wishes counsel on his 
policy, he should obtain it by a discussion of 
general principles or of supposititious cases. 
An important reason why a teacher should 
not reveal his intentions is that he is not 
fully committed to a policy until he has crys- 
tallized it into decisive action. 

But the policy is all - important. What 



190 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

kind of governmeut shall the teacher seek 
to introduce into the school? Doubtless all 
will answer the government of just and salu- 
tary principles. But what is the form of tliis 
government of just and salutary principles? 
The despot may hold that he embodies it ; 
the autocrat may claim that he represents it ; 
the drill-sergeant may insist that he has the 
true conception of order and its laws. We 
believe that the best teachers will dissent 
from all these forms and seek to create a 
democracy. The discussion of government 
with the governed tends to enlighten them 
as to its uses : it distributes responsibility 
and infuses loyalty. A rule established by 
common consent raises an impregnable bar- 
rier against disorder. Delinquents feel the 
government of the school, and not the sever- 
ity of the teacher. The teacher becomes the 
executive officer of a system, the represent- 
ative of a constituency. The teacher origi- 
nates and matures measures under the dem- 
ocratic system ; but lie only enforces what 



191 



lias met with general acceptance. By this 
system his government escapes the reactions 
of imtimely innovations, and he escapes the 
unpopularity of being regarded as a martinet 
and theorist. The teacher will bide his time, 
working meanwhile Tipon the general condi- 
tions ; he will submit his points as he feels 
the sentiment ripe for their adoption ; and 
he will thereafter enforce them with the 
most miflinching firmness. The non-enforce- 
ment of a rule is as detrimental to discijDline 
as the creation of an nntimely rule. The 
work of discipline is to bring volition under 
law. The experience of law shonld be that 
of wholesome firmness. 

In the matter of actual government we 
observe that the teacher shonld proceed with 
the utmost deliberation ; but in the matter of 
making the people governable he may pro- 
ceed with the utmost activity and persistence. 
What acts tend to make the people govern- 
able? Any act that tends to uproot a preju- 
dice ; any act that tends to enlarge their con- 



192 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

ce2:>tions of tilings ; any act that increases their 
confidence in the goodness and capacity of 
the teacher ; any act that awakens their grat- 
itude ; any act that arouses their sense of re- 
sponsibihty; any act that enhghtens them as 
to the nature of duty and the proper sphere 
of government. There are a thousand acts 
both small and great which are attended with 
these fruitful results, and which are compre- 
hended under the teacher's proper problems. 
The proper method of managing a school 
is the most comfortable ; tliere is a joy in 
doing good ; and there is an ecstasy in each 
victory over disorder. Tlie autocrat is sel- 
dom happy ; his blunders heap coals of fire 
upon his own head. lie drifts into an un- 
known school and finds himself face to face 
with serious disorder. He attempts to har- 
ness the disorder with his rules, and finds it 
fractious. He becomes worried, petulant, an- 
gry ; he precipitates colHsions, employs vio- 
lence, brings about a state of war, and stirs up 
much bad blood in the neighborhood. If he 



teachers' problems. 193 

holds his post, he holds rankling hate that 
requires to be watched with argus eyes, giv- 
ing not a moment's sense of security. His 
nerves are under continual excitement ; he 
feels condemned to the most excruciating tort- 
ure ; he considers that he has the most " aw- 
ful" neighborhood and the most ^^ awful" 
scholars that ever persecuted an unhappy 
teacher. He longs for liis release, and on 
that point at least his pupils are with him ; 
they are as unhappy and miserable as he. 
But this is all retribution for beginning 
wrong; it is the terrible reaction of injus- 
tice; it is disastrous failure. 

The above is a very common experience 
in school management. It is noticeable that 
while those teachers rejDort their own pangs, 
they seem utterly unconscious of having in- 
flicted any. They have inflicted pangs, and 
they have clouded young lives. They suffer- 
ed and failed because they did not come to 
their work with generous intentions; they 
came with the selfish motive of earning a 



194: THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY. 

little money comfortably ; and inasmuch as 
the unhappy children robbed them of their 
comfort, they feel that they are martyrs. 
There is no comfort except in the observ- 
ance of law. The teacher who studies his 
problems in order to conform to law in his 
movements will hnd the thorns disappearing 
from his pathway and beds of roses taking 
their places. 

But it may a23pear laborious to discover the 
individuality of the district, the parents, and 
the children, and to operate from the stand- 
point of this individuality according to the 
laws of development. True, it requires exer- 
tion ; but there is not the wear and tear in 
it that occurs in a blind battle with forces. 
The exertion involved in rational 'govern- 
ment is the exercise of one's superior powers 
— exercise that gives the teacher develo]3ment 
for his reward, exercise that makes him great 
and strong for occasions, instead of wear- 
ing him out. Then he has, furthermore, the 
teacher's highest reward — the intense satisfac- 



teachers' problems. 195 

tion of seeing his little well-disciplined army 
moving steadily onward to success, after they 
leave his jurisdiction, with colors flying and 
hearts freighted with hope and confidence. 
He knows that each will do a soldier's duty 
wherever the fortunes of war may place him, 
and at the end of the campaign send in a 
glorious report to headquarters. Surely the 
possibility of such rewards ought to nerve 
the teacher to any amount of exertion needed 
to subdue and master his situation. These 
possibilities are not confined to any one dis- 
trict ; they exist in all. 

It is, then, a high privilege to have the 
moulding of youthful emotions, the shajDing 
of youthful conceptions. The teacher is that 
maturity that stoops to youth, that it may con- 
quer ; he is that maturity that adjusts the 
real to the ideal without doing violence to 
the suggestions of nature ; he is that older 
friend who protects the untrained footsteps 
of youth from error ; he is that maturity that 
saves the faith of man in the sympathy and 



196 THE SCHOOL AXD THE FAMILY. 

generosity of his kind. Let us have in onr 
schools that kind of government which con- 
duces to the good of all, and not that kind of 
government which scatters discord, unhappi- 
ness, and failure. Our matter-of-fact age, in 
its intellectual tendencies, would underesti- 
mate the value of the affections ; it j)roscribes 
" gush." But there will come a reaction. It 
seems scarcely possible that the cynic shall 
dictate the universal form of himian exist- 
ence. The highest type of man is he who 
can feel as well as know. It has taken ages 
of injustice to make us a race of cynics ; it 
may take other ages of kindness to restore us 
to our normal condition of "good w^ill towards 
men." The cynic himself concedes that man 
has a spiritual nature, the seat of the affec- 
tions, but holds that he should grow away 
from it, instead of letting it unfold and grow 
with him. 

We know in order that we may feel, not 
that we may dispense with feeling : our high- 
est sensibilities are fed by knowledge. We 



teachers' problems. 197 

would be delivered from tliut professed ina- 
turitj whicli offers as its credentials a with- 
ered heart. True generosity will not halt 
in its noble undertakings because icy selfish- 
ness cliooses to stigmatize its expressions as 
''gush" and "sentiment." The teacher needs 
the courage to be good, and to profess good- 
ness. 

The teacher finds his problems all around 
him in the imperfections to be removed, and 
in the qualities and aptitudes to be nourished 
and developed. He is the physician of the 
modern school who repudiates plasters and 
nostrums, and who assists nature to arrest 
disease and shake it off. Those problems are 
numerous ; to discuss them all w^ould take 
much space. But they are not all revealed ; 
widening experience will bring more and 
more to light. Those desirous of seeing 
them will find them in the data of the good 
governor. Each problem is a case represent- 
ing a large class of similar experiences. We 
need an educational literature giving in full 



198 THE SCHOOL AND THE FAIVIILY. 

the history of the solution of each problem. 
Science and literature will be indebted to the 
recorded observations and operations of the 
capable teacher. 

But can we afford good government ? — that 
is, can we afford to employ wisdom and skill 
to preside over our schools? The answer will 
be found in otlier queries. Can we afford to 
be happy? Can we afford to dispense with 
the dead weights which intellectual and mor- 
al ignorance are ever imposing upon society ? 
Can we afford a jDopulation of producers, in- 
stead of drones and wrecks to be carried ? 
The answer comes from the districts them- 
selves. The small salary of an autocrat is 
felt to be a burden; and it is a real burden, 
for it is so much dead loss and waste. Com- 
plaints about expenses prevail mostly in dis- 
tricts that pay small salaries, because those 
districts have not received benefits from their 
expenditures. Districts which have passed 
through the same stages of complaint have 
been known to pay cheerfully much larger 



teachers' problems. 199 



salaries in order to retain the services of a 
capable teacher. It will not pay to use in- 
competency gratis ; but there will result the 
best returns from giving a living compensa- 
tion to merit. 

We reiterate, in closing, the necessity for 
educational doctrines and formulas to unify 
the educational power of the nation, to con- 
serve experience, to facilitate progress, and to 
protect the profession and the cause from 
abuses. We have hinted at a grand correla- 
tion of principles in education, that would en- 
dow the young with the experience of the 
old, and make the experience of one the expe- 
rience of all. For the teachers and the pub- 
lic we need distinct and uniform educational 
doctrines ; for the profession we need to have 
those doctrines formulated under an exhaust- 
ive classification and fixed technology. We 
believe the time is near at hand when a teach- 
er's orthodoxy may be tested by terms, when 
he will be required to discuss the things and 
relations of educational science as he now 



200 THE SCHOOL a:nd the family. 

discusses the things and relations of English 
grammar. 

The science of education is c[uite as easy 
to comprehend as the science of sentences. 
They are both logical sciences ; the distinc- 
tions in the one are neither more refined nor 
abstruse than in the other. Our art of talk- 
ing has led us to perceive the laws of speech 
or the science of grammar. Our art of teach- 
ing should lead us to the laws of develop- 
ment or the science of education. 

It should be easy to decide which of these 
sciences ought to have the preference. Bad 
grammar makes us offend against taste ; bad 
education makes us offend against the fun- 
damental laws of being. 



INDEX. 



Absence, causes of Page 28 

Activity of childhood 31, 170 

univ^ersal law of 14 

Affections, ground of custody 30 

spiritual, the culmination of our moral nature. ... 50 

Allegiance due from the child 40 

American educational problem, the 132 

Anah'sis, tabular 127 

Assimilation of citizens the work of education 132 

Association of ideas illustrated, the 57, 01 

Attention essential to order 56 

how produced 57 

Authority, abdication of 42 

abuse of 41 

conflict of 41 

Character a power in discipline 53 

defined 49 

how formed 54 

Cheerfulness necessary in the teacher 93 

Compensation due to service of value 87 

Complaisance deceptive 50 

Confidence secured by sympathy 171 

Conscience defined 100 

the immediate cause of order 73 

Conserving forces in society 117 

Corporal punishment, proper use of 101 

Counsel an absolute need of youth 171 

Covetousness a cause of absence 34 

Crime a violation of law 40 

Criminal punishments are losses of rights 78 

Custody granted to the affections 30 



'202 INDEX. 



Desires produce volition Page 44 

Dilapidation of school property, causes of 89 

Discipline defined 14 

Disobedience, causes of 41 

Dissipation produced by custom 28 

Domestic culture the work of the mother 161 

Duties of parents 83 

Duty a branch of knowledge 103 

Edification defined 12 

Education an art 126, 153 

Educational science , 136 

Eligibility to educational ofRces 113 

Enforced stillness, evils of 57, 70, 88 

Examination of teachers should include educational sci- 
ence 105, 135 

Excitement, effects of 29 

Executive ability delusive 104 

External training 22, 173 

False maturity 178 

Family government 28 

Female education 141 

teachers 140 

Fossil teachers 60 

Happiness a condition of order 44 

Heroism, uses of 77 

Hero-worship a necessity of childhood 176 

Hours of rest 33 

Human nature, elements of 55 

Ideality characteristic of youth -. 179 

Illogical notions 68 

Imitation, powerlessness of 96 

Induction defined 11 

Indulgence, effects of 34, 42 

Injudicious criticism 39 

Injustice defined 74 

reaction of 89 

Insecurity expensive 80 



INDEX. 203 



Instinct the child's law Page 1()"2 

Insubordination, causes of 41 

Intellectual idleness 95 

Judicial decision 37 

Legal protection needed ()♦> 

License caused by undue restraint 70 

consists of 91 

Love, solicitude of 3(j 

test of character 5(» 

the basis of instruction 8-1 

]Mal-education 27 

[Manners, how formed 92 

Maturity a right of childhood 84 

detined 8G 

tested 49 

Migration caused by educational wants 148 

[Misanthropy, how caused 179 

Missionary work of teachers 68 

Moral courage an element of character 52, 78 

law detined 75 

power necessary to the teacher 48, 188 

remedies in discipline G5 

Motherhood, importance of 167 

Music a power over conduct 46 

Natural imbecility 72 

signals 97 

Normal schools 136 

Obedience depends on faith 103 

produced by conscience 73 

the duty of the child 43 

Objective instruction detined 12 

Order defined 14 

Over-education a fallacy 26 

Parental exclusiveness 164 

opinions fallacious 25 



204: INDEX. 



Parental visitation of schools Page 39 

Parties in a school 15 

Patriotism a cause of self-sacrifice 76 

Perjury, incentives to 115 

Poetic genius a perception of law and order 15 

Practical reforms related to youth's ideals 180 

Precocity, phases of 175 

Preoccupation a parental fault 165 

Prerogatives of citizenship , 131 

Presumptive perfection of the teacher 40 

Procraatination, effects of 28 

Professional education, need of 184 

Progress a factor in discipline 60 

indications of 64 

Propensities, contest with 63, 181 

Prudence wanting in children 29 

Public opinion, power of 132 

Public order related to happiness 46 

related to order in schools 41 

Punctualit}', importance of 27 

Rebellion encouraged 23 

Reciprocity the law of acquisition 100 

Reflection defined 183 

Relaxation a need 93 

Respect a condition of obedience 47 

Retribution inseparable from wrong action 100, 192 

Rights, how alienated 76 

inalienable 76 

of children 84 

of district 80 

of parents 82, 106 

of property 37 

of society 79 

of teachers 87, 107 

origin of 75 

Rote-teaching injurious 58 

Rules, use and abuse of 186 

Rural education, importance of 144 

opportunities 145 



INDEX. 205 



School patriotism Page 17 

polity l«i» 

Schools, purpose of 82 

Selfishness abuses government Gl) 

destroys schools 13:^ 

in the family 1(11 

Self-mastery in the teacher a power in discipline 'JD 

Sentiments cultivated 15;} 

Services due from children o(> 

Slavery of children .'!"> 

Society the condition of human development 71> 

Subdivision of territory affects discipline li) 

Subject defined 11 

Subjective instruction defined 12 

Superintendent a teacher, the 110 

Supervision a phase of discipline 109 

appointive 118 

nominal .. 121 

political 112 

Support the prime family problem 157 

Susceptibilities defined 45 

Tardiness, causes of 28 

Taxation, grounds of 81 

Teachers' facilities for preparation 130 

Township system 18 

Training, industrial, a parental duty. . , . > 30 

Tyranny of custom 29 

Unprofitable discussions 39 

Violence a violation of rights 90 

springs from selfishness 09 

Volition, origin of 44 

Weakness of youth 54 

Wealth, what constitutes 152 

Will power an evil and a good 69 

Wrong defined 74 



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